“To know as much wonder as we can reach in whatever our spans may be,” his leman said eagerly.
“But they’ll come to a close!” Dagmar cried.
Tauno nodded. “Aye, Faerie is fey, and the work of such as
Niels and you is what will bring it to the end.” He squeezed the shoulder of the first, kissed the cheek of the second. “Regardless, we love you.”
“And we love you,” Dagmar said through tears. “Must we mourn you in eternity?”
“No. No more than you’ll mourn this whole world”-the fe-male swept a hand around sea, land, sky, all the light night-“fair though you will remember that it was. We would not be other than we are: our part of the whole Creation.”
“lngeborg-Nada-“ Bewilderment lowered the grief in Dagmar. “Who are you?”
“Both and neither. A child of sorrow whose mother died in the birthing. May yours be the child of abiding joy. . . . I need a name for myself. May I call me Eyjan?”
This time it was the mortal woman that embraced the woman of Faerie.
The yacht had towed a skiff, which brought Niels and his wife ashore. He was rowing when a yardarm rattled aloft. Tauno made sail fast and took the rudder. His mate called up a strong breeze. Their craft surged forward, north-northwest over the Kattegat, to round the Skaw and find the ocean. Above her mast, catching on their wings the light of a sun still hidden, went a flight of wild swans.
Epilogue
IN May of the year of Our Lord 1312 died Pavle Subitj the king-maker. His son Mladen followed him as Ban, tried to complete the reconquest of Zadar, but failed and must lift the siege. He likewise failed to curb feuding among the Hrvatskan clans. Again the Kachitji roved as pirates along the Dalmatian seaboard, again the Nelipitji and their allies strove to wrest power from the Subitji and Frankapani. In 1322, civil war broke out. Making league with Nelipitji, Venice took Shibenik and Trogir at once, Split and Nin soon after. Dark were those decades.
Yet Father Tomislav, beard gone white and hands gnarled into uselessness, could stand before a congregation that included wid-owed, defeated, graying Captain Andrei, and could preach in a sermon:
“’For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ The Saviour’s’words, when Nicodemus the Phar-isee questioned him. Would He have troubled to argue if He hadn’t cared? Easier just to say, ‘You know what miracles I’ve done already. Stop pestering Me, fall down and worship, before I throw a lightning bolt.’ But He did His best to explain the mystery because He wanted folk to come to Him of their free wills, not afraid of Him but seeking home to their Father.
“God loves us. Never forget that. I think He sends us fewer trials than we bring on our own foolish selves. Be that as it may, hang fast to the knowledge’ of His care for you. No matter what happens, we are not forsaken. Nobody is. Jesus could consort with publicans, sinners, and pagans. These days we have schis-matics, heretics, Jews, Turks, heathen, Venetians—and He loves them the same as He loves you. We stumbling mortals often see no way out of having to fight; but must we hate?” A sunbeam through one of the narrow, unglazed windows made the old priest wipe his eyes as he went on:
“’For God so loved the world. . . . ‘ I take that to mean every-thing He ever made; and there’s nothing He did not make. If you need comfort, think of that. Think how the very dust under your feet is loved. We’ve seen Him give souls to merfolk; He. . . He forgave a poor little shadow and raised her to Heaven; let us take courage from this.
“I’ve a notion He creates nothing in vain. That Satan himself, after Armageddon and what follows have shown him the error of his ways, may repent and be shriven. That on the Last Day, not only will our dead be resurrected, but all that ever was, ever lived, to the glory of God.”