Fire Angels

Epilogue Ernundra

Though the earth was the color of ash, at least the areas round Sanctuary had been green even if it was only with bone-seed. Here in Ernundra only a few scraggly brown bushes grew in the grey soil.

The Klementari were hard at work, turning the earth, spreading seeds and covering the ground with a mulch of leaves that they had brought a whole two days journey from the Red Mountains in baskets on their backs. Alongside them labored those of the Burning Light who had survived Sanctuary. There were several hundred of them, for Stalker had been stockpiling fodder against the time when he would have to escape a vengeful White College. The Klementari had cared for the surviving prisoners and as a result, though most ordinary Morians had decided to return to Moria, many of the Burning Light worshippers had decided to stay and help rebuild Ernundra. Despite the terrible experiences the Burning Light had undergone at the hands of Darmen Stalker, they were people with a tendency towards the spiritual life. In the years to come many of them would adopt the Klementari religion and many others would settle in the renewed Wasteland near them, to become their loyal neighbors. Ironic considering that they would once have burned the Klementari at the stake.

"I hear you are Lady of Ruinac now," said Causa.

"Yes," I said. "Lady Julia named me so at her coronation. Tomas arranged it. He arranged for the rest of our family to be awarded extensive lands too. Lady Julia has waved the rule against mages owing land at least for our generation."

"Tomas even organized lands for me," grinned Shad. "I was amazed at his generosity."

"Humph!" I said. "He just didn't want his sister mated to someone who wasn't a Lord."

"A Lord. A pretty fine thing for a wood cutter's son, or would be if I was Lord of more than wasteland. Where are the folk I can order hither and thither in a lordly manner? That is what I want to know."

Causa smiled and said, "It was a wise chose. Those with magic will be able to make this land recover faster and you know our ways, Shad Forest."

"It will be a long task, but definitely one worth giving a lifetime to," said Shad.

"Aye," I said. "The land around Ruinac is already well on the way to recovery, what with the bone seed and all the dead who are buried there. I am pulling apart the great cathedral to make sure nothing ill continues there. Though I wonder... So much death and pain. Will anything good ever come from such a place?"

"The land takes death and makes life from it," said Causa. "That is one of its powers. I am going to have a child," she said suddenly."

Even Shad looked a little surprised.

"An autumn baby?" he said politely.

She laughed.

"How diplomatic you are, Shad Forest. Dion is more honest. Look how she stares. I have borne children before and I am not yet fifty. And pregnant women are a great source of life force. The child in my womb will nourish Ernundra as Ernundra nourishes it. Come, I shall show you something." She moved away down the hill.

"Most of our women have conceived children," she said as we followed behind her. "That is how you feed a land, by living on it and caring for it, loving it, by bearing children to cherish it when you are gone."

"Is that why everybody is carrying those little bags of earth round on their backs?" asked Shad.

"Yes. In that bag is a little piece of Ernundra. We carry it with us always to remind us that we are part of it and hope that it may be nourished and awakened by our life force. We shall never let ourselves be separated from it again. Now, look at that hill over there. Beg has discovered remains of one of the old spirit caves there."