Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [18]
“How did it do that?” Fixit asked doubtfully.
“It did it because the river knew of the boy’s vision,” Owl said. “Rivers are deep in knowledge and hold many secrets. This one knew the secret of the boy’s vision. So it let the boy and his children cross over to the other side where they would be safe.”
“What about the King? Didn’t he try to follow?” Panther was still looking for a fight to take place.
“He did. He took all of his army in their war machines and carriers and went down the same path the boy and his children had taken, determined to catch them and bring them back. But the boy lifted his arms a second time and the waters collapsed on the evil King and his soldiers and drowned them all, every last one.”
There was a momentary silence as the children digested this. She gave them that moment, then said, “So the boy led his children away from the river and after two more days, they reached the Promised Land.”
“What was it like there?” River asked, huddled on the floor next to Candle, her knees pulled up to her chest.
Owl leaned back in her wheelchair. “That story must wait for another night. It’s time to go to bed now.” She looked around at the disappointed faces.
“Practice your reading until you get sleepy, then blow out your candles.
Sweet dreams.”
She rolled her chair down forward, stirring them to action. They climbed to their feet grudgingly, some asking for another story, some saying they weren’t sleepy, but no one really arguing. Hawk was moving around the room, turning off the lamps, one by one, all but the tiny one that illuminated the heavy entry door. In the old days, one of them would have stood watch all night.
Cheney took care of that now.
As the others trudged off to the bedrooms they shared, Owl paused to watch Hawk reach down and ruffle Cheney’s thick coat around the neck and ears. The big dog lay quietly, letting the boy pet him. Owl always found herself waiting for the day Cheney would take off his arm.
Candle stopped by her chair and looked her in the eye. “That was our story, wasn’t it, Owl?” she asked quietly. “The boy’s vision was Hawk’s vision.”
She didn’t miss much, this one, Owl thought. “Yes, it was,” she said. “But it happened to the boy and his children, too.”
Candle nodded. “Except that the vision in the story isn’t real, but Hawk’s vision is. I know it is. I have seen it.”
She turned and walked toward her bedroom, not looking back. Owl felt her throat tighten and tears spring to her eyes.
I have seen it.
Candle, who saw what was not entirely clear to the rest of them, had seen this.
Alone in the common room, Owl sat quietly in her wheelchair, staring into space and thinking, and did not move again until the rest of them were in bed and fast asleep.
Chapter FOUR
THE LADY CAME to Logan Tom for the first time in a vision. Even now, he could remember the details as clearly as if the meeting had taken place yesterday. He was alone by then, Michael and the others gone, traveling north toward the Canadian border. He had stopped for the night on the shores of one of a thousand lakes that dotted that region, somewhere deep inside what had once been Wisconsin. The day was gone and night had settled in, and it was one of those rare occasions when the skies were clear and bright and free of clouds and pollution. Stars shone, a distant promise of better times and places, and the moon was full and bright.
He had gotten out of the Lightning and was standing at the edge of the lake, staring off into the moonlit distance, pondering missed chances and lost friends. He was in a place darker than the night in which he stood, and he was frightened that he might not find his way out. He was riddled with misgivings and guilt, wrapped in a fatalistic certainty that his life had come to nothing.
His wounds were healed, but his heart was shattered. The faces of those people he had loved most after Michael—his parents and his brother and sister— were vague images that floated in hazy memories and whispered in ghostly, indecipherable warnings.