Part 5. The Order of Custodians

33. Restoration

The little meadow was just as beautiful as Elen remembered it to be.
The fountain sparkled and the tiny lights danced, it seemed in welcome.
She and Teransir hadn’t been at all sure what they could do here.
They still weren’t.
Then one of the lights flitted to the edge of the green, where ash and blackened rock began to claim the landscape.
They followed it there, walking hand in hand as if they were still in their youth,
and as they trod into the harsh terrain it seemed to glow.
Through no spelling of either of them the lifeless rocks turned to meadow underfoot.
They took another step, and then another and with each step the meadow spread to meet their feet.
They laughed.
They would walk this barren world.
As they did, it would reveal its beauty.
It would be no labour, it would be more rewarding than anything they had ever done before.

Hearing the sound of the softly laughing lights again, Elen turned towards the fountain.
Standing in front of it was a young man.
Blond hair, blue eyes and the unmistakable features of their family.
He stood there looking down at the long cream coloured robe that he was wearing.
“I don’t usually wear this, but I don’t know what I do wear.” he said puzzled.

“Are you Mat?” asked Teransir, unable to believe his eyes.
“Yes, I think I am” he said after a little thought.
He was a little disoriented, the lights had been racing around him, but now had returned to the fountain.
“Where am I? I thought I died.”
Elen ran to him and took his hands. He certainly felt real enough.
“Well, if you are Mat, everyone thinks you did.” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t remember” he said.
Then he laughed. “It doesn’t matter though, at least I don’t think it does.”

“Do you remember anything?” Elen asked.
“A woman. Dark hair and a bit bossy. Very pretty. I gave her my sword I think.” He thought for a while.
“My uncle Avin tried to heal me. My mother is called Sil.” He was beaming a huge smile.
“My father is called Hirn, I can remember him a little, but from a very long time ago.”

Teransir approached him. “I’m your grandfather, Mat. I’m called Teransir and this is your grandmother, Elen.”

He was excited now. “Avin told me about you. You were lost for a long time. Jan! I remember Jan and Gant!”
He sat down on the grass and babbled about Wenda and trips with Gant and Jan to other worlds.
Then he looked confused. “But what am I doing here? I did die!”
The lights flew around them.
They sang again.

“Part of we, given back to thee
Part of thee, all part of we
Heal our weave, Heal our weave”

“We’ll try our best” said Elen through the mist of her tears of joy. “We’ll try our very best.”

***************************************************

Back in Strant Gant awoke after two days in the Wishmaker’s sleeping hut.
The hut was used for people to recover from the potions that the Wishmakers used to dream their wishes.
He’d been with the small group, about eight in all, for a couple of weeks, gradually learning about their ways,
but he had remained sceptical about their methods.
Everything was so intangiable.
A sword he could feel in his hands, and when he used magic, it was a force that he could shape and mould with his will.
The idea of dreaming a wish was something that he just couldn’t grasp.

So they showed him.

He’d been given a potion and asked to concentrate on something that he wished for.
The potion had made him dream and he’d dreamed of Mat.
He’d wished with all his heart that Mat had not been taken from them.
As if he had known when Gant would wake, Ern entered the sleeping hut.
He gave him ale to drink and bread and cheese.

“You will see brother, very soon you will see.”
Knowing that the dreaming with him had borne its first fruit.

He always knew.

***************************************************

And later Riani and Avin joined Sil and Hirn crying unashamedly as Mat was restored to them, returned to them by
Elen and Teransir.

Gant standing by astonished to see his dreaming and wish making standing as a fact in front of his eyes.
Wishmaker Ern had handed him a rattle, which he waved enthusiastically before realising he’d said he was too
embarrassed to be seen to use it. Oh well.
If he was going to learn this new way he might as well look the part.

***************************************************

Somewhere on Rintar, on its sunless side, a howling fury sometimes rode the winds, blasting its frustration and
anger at the hot stone mountains. It’s connections to the ones who carried it’s will severed.
The tinkling laughter held sway on the growing meadow of grass and wild flowers on the sunside.
There were many miles of it now, and more custodians were coming to join Elen and Teransir.
Soon the land would be restored, the weave healed again.
Birds flew again over grassland and wildflowers, and streams now bubbled to join rivers.
Life was blossoming again, where once it had taken almost all the will and love that the sparkling lights could muster
to keep just a few feet of it to grace their fountain.

***************************************************

Jan sat with Derel in the Cow and Puddle thinking about everything.
Everyone was there.
Lord Terin, now officially the new Duke of Strant, had paid the inn keeper to keep ale flowing to anyone who
turned up that night.
Avin and Riani were looking at each other with that look they had, the one that Gant had said was erotic.
Elen and Teransir and Sil and Hirn looking not much differently at each other.
At least they were when they weren’t all watching Mat as if he would disappear again at any second.
Gant and Alena were standing on a table singing with a group of warriors.
Gerard was still looking as if he couldn’t believe any of it had happened, sitting with Terin and periodically
quizzing him over details that he had missed.
Perhaps soon everyone would have that problem.
Time and extremity makes us all forget a lot of things, both pleasant and painful Jan thought to himself.

He and Derel were sitting in a corner strumming their lutes and scribbling now and then in their books.
Jan was shaking his head. “It would have all made a great song, Derel.
It’s a great story, lots of heroes and heroines, nasty villains and full of romance…
but it will never make a saga…none of us died!”

They laughed together, grateful for the flaw in their epic tale…

and then they carried on writing it all the same.