It was Pwyll who spoke. He said, with infinite compassion, “He too did everything right, Finn. Everything. He is gone, but he killed Rakoth Maugrim before he died.”
Finn’s eyes widened at that, for the last time. There was joy in them, and a grieving pain, but at the end there was peace again, without border or limitation, just before the dark.
“Oh, little one,” he said. And then he died, holding his father’s hand.
There was a legend that took shape in after days, a tale that grew, perhaps, because so many of those who lived through that time wanted it to be true. A tale of how Darien’s soul, which had taken flight some time before his brother’s, was allowed by intercession to pause in the timelessness between the stars and wait for Finn to catch up to him.
And then the story told of how the two of them passed together over the walls of Night that lie all about the living worlds, toward the brightness of the Weaver’s Halls. And Darien’s soul was in the shape he’d had when he was small, when he was Dari, and the eyes of his soul were blue and Finn’s were brown as they went side by side toward the Light.
So the legend went, afterward, born of sorrow and heart’s desire. But Jaelle, the High Priestess, rose that day from Finn’s side, and she saw that the westering sun had carried the afternoon well over toward twilight.
Then Pwyll also rose, and Jaelle looked upon his face and saw power written there so deeply and so clearly that she was afraid.
And it was as the Lord of the Summer Tree, the Twiceborn of Mórnir, that he spoke. “With all the griefs and joys of this day,” Pwyll said, seeming almost to be looking through her, “there is one thing left to be done, and it is mine to do, I think.”
He walked past her, slowly, and she turned and saw, by the light of the setting sun, that everyone was gathered on the plain about the figure of Galadan. They were motionless, like statues, or figures caught in time.
Leaving Shahar alone with his son she followed after Pwyll, carrying her silver circlet in her hand. Above her head as she walked down to the plain she heard the quick, invisible wings of his ravens, Thought and Memory. She didn’t know what he was about to do, but in that moment she knew another thing, a truth in the depths of her own heart, as she saw the circle of men make way for Pwyll to pass within, facing the Wolflord of the andain.
Standing beside Loren, with Ruana at her other side, Kim watched Paul walk into the circle, and she had a sudden curious mental image—gone as soon as it came to her— of Kevin Laine, laughing carelessly in Convocation Hall before anything had happened. Anything at all.
It was very quiet in Andarien. In the red of the setting sun the faces of those assembled glowed with a strange light. The breeze was very soft, from the west. All around them lay the dead.
In the midst of the living, Paul Schafer faced Galadan and he said, “We meet for the third time, as I promised you we would. I told you in my own world that the third time would pay for all.”
His voice was level and low, but it carried an infinite authority. To this hour, Kim saw, Paul had brought all of his own driven intensity, and added to that, now, was what he had become in Fionavar. Especially since the war was over. Because she had been right: his was not a power of battle. It was something else, and it had risen within him now.
He said, “Wolflord, I can see in any darkness you might shape and shatter any blade you could try to throw. I think you know that this is true.”
Galadan stood quietly, attending to him carefully. His scarred, aristocratic head was high; the slash of silver in his black hair gleamed in the waning light. Owein’s Horn lay at his feet like some discarded toy.