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283 lines
16 KiB
HTML
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<head>
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<title>The Shadowmaster - Chapter </title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="imperaWeb.css"/>
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<link rel="stylesheet" type=
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<h1>27</h1>
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<p>
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In front of them, fathomless water flowed fast. How wide this river was, they couldn't tell. They huddled on a narrow embankment facing the water, the only
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small piece of flat ground with their backs pressed against the cliff.
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</p>
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<p>
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"So where do we go from here?" Kerry turned to face the wall. The door had closed seamlessly. There was no line or crack to show that it had ever opened.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack edged towards the flow full of doubt again. They were trapped once more, unless they chanced the fast current and that was impossible. Kerry couldn't
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swim. He didn't know about Rionna, and even so, the current was too strong.
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</p>
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<p>
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A movement below the surface caught his eye. Corriwen got to her knees and peered down. Jack saw her shoulders stiffen and she backed away. They all looked
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into the depths and saw pallid faces swaying slowly in the current.
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</p>
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<p>
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They were crowded together, row upon row. Their eyes were closed and long hair and ragged clothing waved like river weed.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I don't know," Jack sighed wearily. The prospect of swimming the dark river was scary enough, but the idea of getting into the water with those multitudes
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of senseless pale things, well, that didn't bear thinking about.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Wait," Rionna said. "Something comes. I hear it."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack strained to listen. The river murmured as it rippled past, like muffled voices. He cupped a hand to his ear.
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</p>
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<p>
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Then he heard a different noise, something he thought he recognised. It was the faint sound of water lapping against a surface. It was just the kind of
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sound he'd heard at the harbour back home when a breeze drove waves against moored boats.
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</p>
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<p>
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Now he peered out and a shape began to materialise, approaching through the low mist.
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</p>
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<p>
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For an instant, he thought it was a man walking on water, tall and thin. The figure glided slowly and steadily. They watched apprehensively as it came
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closer.
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's a woman," Corriwen whispered.
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</p>
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<p>
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And it was. She stood very straight, floating serenely through the fog, as pallid as the things under the water. Her hair was white, skin like marble and
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lips deathly pale. Her fingers were long, almost fleshless. Her eyes had no colour at all as they gazed down at them expressionlessly.
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</p>
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<p>
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As she came nearer, Jack saw that she stood in the stern of a flat boat. In her hands she held a long paddle as a rudder. The boat arrowed across the
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river, against the current, though it had neither oars nor sail.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack took a brave step forward.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Can you take us across the river?"
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</p>
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<p>
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She turned her eyes on him, seeming to look through him. Jack wasn't sure if she'd heard him. Up close, she appeared insubstantial, as if she was made from
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the fog itself. When she spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Pay the passage. None cross without payment. Those who stay sleep forever in the depths."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack recalled what the horned guardian had said in the cavern. <em>Find the means to pay your way, or sleep forever.</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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"I can pay," he said, delving into the pocket. He drew out a gold coin that Rune the Cluricaun had given him in Eirinn. The five stars of the Corona
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constellation gleamed on its polished surface, the sign of the Sky Queen.
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</p>
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<p>
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She bent over him, empty eyes fixed on the coin.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Her coin has no value here," she whispered, her voice hollow. "And one would not pay passage for four."
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</p>
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<p>
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"You could give us children's rates," Kerry said. "How about half-fare?"
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</p>
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<p>
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The ferrywoman closed her eyes and the boat moved away from the bank.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Wait," Corriwen cried. "I have coin!"
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</p>
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<p>
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She slung her pack from her shoulder delved inside and drew out a leather purse.
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</p>
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<p>
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"When we escaped Dermott's men, we took weapons and horses…and their money."
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</p>
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<p>
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She rummaged, feeling with her fingers then drew them out. "We spent some on bread. But maybe there is enough."
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</p>
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<p>
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Four small coins lay on her palm. They were chipped and worn with age, but they were silver, which was plain to see. Jack hoped the woman would accept the
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money.
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</p>
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<p>
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The ferrywoman held out a slender hand. Corriwen dropped the coins into it. They made no sound at all. Her fingers closed and when they opened again, the
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four coins had vanished.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Passage paid," the woman whispered. "Embark."
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</p>
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<p>
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They filed aboard. Almost immediately, the boat turned away and they were cutting across the current. The little bank behind them faded into the mist.
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Under the surface of the water, the ghostly beings swayed dreamily. Kerry couldn't draw his eyes away from them and his knuckles were white on the gunwale.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack couldn't tell how far they travelled in silence, huddled together for warmth and comfort. At some point, he knew he must have dozed, for he started
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awake when the low prow nudged a shallow bank. He was stiff and weary.
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</p>
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<p>
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They had reached the far side of the river. He helped Corriwen and Rionna out onto the bank. Kerry followed with their packs and dumped them at their feet.
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He turned and saw the boat and the ferrywoman already turning from the bank.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Creepy old lady," Kerry said.
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</p>
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<p>
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Overhead, the sky was now an unearthly red and the landscape brown and parched. It stretched into the far distance. As far as Jack could see, nothing
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living grew here.
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</p>
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<p>
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They stood together, looking at miles of scorched earth, littered with craters and bare rocks which jutted up like stumps of old teeth.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Any idea where we are?" Kerry asked, not expecting an answer.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack scanned the barren lands and all he saw was desolation. He wondered if his father had made the journey to this awful place before them.
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</p>
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<p>
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Could he have survived here for so long?
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</p>
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<p>
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As soon as that thought struck him, Jack wondered in the four of them could survive here at all. They had made it thus far, survived everything that the
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nightshades and Bodron's spellbinding could throw at them. Yet this lifeless place looked as if it could swallow them up and leave no trace. He closed his
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eyes, weary and beset by doubt. Kerry and Corriwen would look to him for guidance and he could think of nothing except finding a way home, if there <em>was</em> a way home.
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</p>
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<p>
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Corriwen touched him on the shoulder and he turned to her.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I can see something up ahead," she said, pointing. Jack stood close to follow her direction. Far out, where the seared land met the red sky, there was a
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faint smudge of darkness. It could have been a hill, or a storm or a cloud, but there was nothing to gauge distance by.
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry bent down to open his pack. He pulled out his water canteen and took a sip, then passed it around and they all drank gratefully.
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</p>
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<p>
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He began to lay out his weapons: the short sword, the old sling the Major had given him, and the bolas with its three weights that Connor had shown him how
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to use. Corriwen sat beside him and stropped her blades on her leather belt.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I think we've run out of luck," Kerry said flatly. "The Book said there was no way home."
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</p>
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<p>
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Corriwen interjected: "Maybe it's wrong this time."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Maybe your father was here," Kerry said softly. "And maybe he just didn't ….."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry didn't say the word, but everybody knew what he meant.
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</p>
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<p>
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The heartstone pulsed very gently. Jack's fingers closed around it and its slow beat somehow ignited a spark of hope within him. The Journeyman's stone
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still had some power here, maybe something to tell him. Jack suddenly thought that if he truly believed his father was dead, then this had all been for
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nothing, all the dangers and all the fear. He did not want to think he had led his friends through all that for no reason.
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</p>
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<p>
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And he did not really want to consider the possibility that after battling through Temair and Eirinn and now Uaine, that there hadn't been a real purpose
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in all their travels.
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</p>
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<p>
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Hadn't the Sky Queen had spoken to him on Tara Hill? She had told him to find the gateway into summer and he had done so, to find himself in Uaine.
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</p>
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<p>
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Everything they had done, every turn, every battle, had led them here.
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</p>
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<p>
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There are no coincidences, he told himself. <em>No coincidences</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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There <em>must</em> be a purpose, he told himself. If his father had found his way to this dreadful place, then Jack Flint would find him. And then, no
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matter what it took, he would help his friends find a way to get home.
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack took out the Book of Ways and laid it on a dry flat stone. They watched as it opened its pages and flicked through almost to the very end. Jack
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thought for a second it would just snap shut, but it stopped at the final page.
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</p>
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<p>
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An omen, he thought. <em>We are near the end</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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When the words finally appeared, they were red as the sky, red as blood.
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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For Journeyman the End of Ways
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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To stand at brink of the End of Days
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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The foulest foe lies here await
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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And traveller meets final fate
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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In darkest place, whence none return
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Yet one is four and four is one
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Light and life may still be won
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Heart and soul may ever quail
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Four as one may yet prevail
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Prepare to meet the evil bane
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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That dwells on terror, fear and pain
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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Hold hard to faith in mortal fight
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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As dark prepares to smother light
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</p>
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<p class="centered">
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And plunge all worlds to deepest night.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Well, there's no mistaking that," Kerry said, running a finger up his sword-blade. "And I get the four-is-one bit. One for all and each for everybody
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else, right?"
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</p>
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<p>
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"It's ever thus," Corriwen solemnly agreed.
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</p>
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<p>
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"At least it says there's a chance," Jack said. That flicker of hope flared brighter. "Light and life may still be won."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Except for the evil bane part," Kerry said. He looked at the short-sword. "I wish we had something better. Like a tommy-gun or a tank. Or one of those
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apache heli-choppers from the movies."
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</p>
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<p>
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Rionna and Corriwen looked at him blankly. Jack forced a wry grin. He patted the hilt of the broadsword.
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</p>
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<p>
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"We'll have to make do with what we've got," he said. "Come on, let's go."
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</p>
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</div>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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