Death and the Emperor

Book 3 Chapter XXIII: All's Well That Ends Well

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside--but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond--only a glimpse--and heard a note of unearthly music. -- L. M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

The royal tour was over. From almost every perspective it had been a resounding success. There had been no disasters, no major mistakes, and -- more importantly -- the tour had increased the royal couple's popularity. So the High Council felt they could breathe a sigh of relief and clap each other on the back.

Gialma was the exception. He had never been at ease in large crowds, and he couldn't imagine Tinuviel and Qihadal would have enjoyed constantly being forced to meet thousands of complete strangers. He kept this thought to himself. The other Counsellors had long since decided that the prince was "arrogant and standoffish", so none of them asked for his opinion.

It was a mistaken impression he gave many people. They weren't inclined to look deeper into the reasons for his reticence and reluctance to interact with other people. Even if they had known he was shy rather than proud, they would have laughed and told him to grow up. So Gialma had gained a reputation for thinking himself too important to talk to anyone. It wasn't pleasant to know this, but it meant people often left him alone. So it was a blessing in disguise for him.

And it wasn't as if he had absolutely no one to talk to. His house was never completely empty of Reapers, and they rarely shut up.

Varan had come up with a new theory of why he was able to see Reapers. She began to explain it the minute Gialma walked into his library.

"I think I know why you can see us!" she exclaimed, looking up from the notes scattered all over his once-tidy room. "You see, there's a sort of barrier between your world and ours -- it's not really a wall, more like a curtain -- and we can brush it aside at will. But you--"

Experience had taught him she could go on for hours like this. Gialma took a deep breath -- for him, even speaking to his cousin took more courage than most people realised -- and interrupted her lecture.

"Varan, you can tell me about that later. I wanted to ask you something."

"Certainly," Varan said agreeably, sitting up straight instead of lying on the floor. "What is it?"

Gialma tried to sort his thoughts into something resembling coherence. "Tinuviel. Have you seen him since he returned?"

Varan shook her head. "Only from a distance."

"Do you think he's... well?"

Words had always been one of Gialma's worst nightmares. He could so rarely find the words for what he wanted to say, and they turned against him or got tangled up with each other like living creatures. "Well" was not what he wanted to say. But it was the only word he could find, and it had to do.

"Well?" Varan repeated. "In what way?"

Gialma tried to put his thoughts into words. "The tour. Do you think he's all right after it?"

She nodded. "I'm sure he's tired, but apart from that I don't think there's anything wrong with him. Death visited him almost every day while they were travelling, and she doesn't seem worried about him."

Death visited Tinuviel? A cold chill ran down Gialma's spine. All his life he had heard stories of what happened when Caranilnavs became too interested in the supernatural. He was fairly sure that daily visits from Death counted as "too interested".