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Bear, Greg - Songs of Earth and Power Vol. 2 - The Serpent Mage
I've done this before
something like it
to Lin Piao Tai
.
"You're going to destroy my world, aren't you?" the original said.
"Yes," Michael answered.
"You know, if I had known a way, I might have helped you and the woman escape.
It was really his idea to bring you here. I have nothing against you. Truly.
I've grown tired "
The waiters, maitre d' and all the other simulacra vanished. The original's
sloughing, sooty evil fell more rapidly. He was surrounded by a thick blanket
of black, formless dust.
Michael stood before Kristine and passed his hand over her eyes again. She
looked around quickly.
Before she could speak, Michael lifted her to her feet and wrapped his arms
around her. "Just a little world," he said. "For us. For now."
Between his palms spread the purest and whitest nacreous sheet. "Are we
leaving?" she asked.
"We're going home," Michael said. "But first, there're going to be some
special effects." He gripped her tightly as the nacre spread around them both.
"Take a deep breath," he said.
"I hold you no ill will," the original Clarkham said. "This is truly best. I
can see that."
Michael turned to look at him. In the middle of a prodigious fall of soot from
his head, in the span of his now-featureless face where his eyes would have
been, two molten drops of silver flowed.
"My regrets," Clarkham said, and the silver fell to the carpet. The La
Bretonne shook, and the walls bloated and spun outward like released balloons.
"Dear God above us all, I wish I had it to do over again "
The nacre closed, and that was as Michael preferred it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
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As Michael held Kristine tightly within the whiteness, eyes half-closed, weary
and resigned to whatever might come, he knew he had done his best. No one
could have asked more of him, not even the Crane
Women.
"Where are we?" Kristine asked.
"I've made a little world to protect us," Michael said.
"Oh." Then, "What does that mean?"
"It means I'm holding you," he said. "And I'm happy."
"Don't talk down to me," she said, not at all in anger. "Where are we, and
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where are they
?"
"We are somewhere near Earth. They are dying or dead by now, and their world
with them. Erased."
She considered this for a moment, conflicting emotions crossing her face in
rapid succession. "You're positive?"
"As positive as I'll ever be about David Clarkham." He nuzzled her. "I'm very
tired, and I'm very happy to have you. Let's wait until later for
explanations."
She stroked his cheek. "What in hell are you?" she asked tenderly.
"Later. Please."
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Bear, Greg - Songs of Earth and Power Vol. 2 - The Serpent Mage
Kristine suddenly relaxed. "All right," she said. "I don't know what it is
about you. 1 feel very safe. I don't know what's going on, and I still feel
safe."
The thought of what he had just done to the two Clarkhams and of all he had
been through and all he had lost, most of it never to be regained and the
long path he had taken to come here, wherever here
was, and that Kristine should tell him this, putting her seal of approval on
him&
"You're crying again," she said. His back began to knot up and his shoulders
to curl inward. "No," she crooned. "Relax."
But it had to come. He felt the Serpent Mage's memories within him, filled
with tales of all his ancestors culled from a million years of "listening,"
and he thought of Manus in defeat.
He thought of Eleuth.
"Shh," Kristine said, holding him as tightly as she could, as if he might fly
away.
And of Shiafa, sad Shiafa finally free she at least was not lost and even
sadder Tarax, power and desire without, finally, the necessary talent.
Within the tiny lifeboat world, settling slowly down to Earth, Michael wept
and shivered and came to terms with what he was and what he would have to be.
"I'm not going away," Kristine said. "Whatever you are. You make me safe."
The whiteness took on color and dissolved around them.
They stood in Clarkham's house, on the second floor, with the ancient bottle
of wine sitting upright and undisturbed a few feet away.
The Earth still existed and accepted them.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
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Fall gave way to winter, and winter to a dry, clear spring.
Chapter Forty
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A different dawn.
To the eyes of most, the pale rose horizon and dusty gray zenith would not
have seemed any different. But
10 Michael, who did not even look with his eyes, the changes were obvious.
For one thing, there had been less violence around the Earth during the night.
Strife between humans and
Sidhe had decreased markedly in the past few months; now, he could see a
decline in strife between humans and humans. He was pleased; there was good
reason to believe he was responsible.
For weeks he had worked to lift a mental haze that had lain over the Earth for
thousands of centuries. The accumulation of discarded dreams, lost memories,
cast-off fragments of personalities from the migrating
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