The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [262]
No, that wasn't what he had meant. Travis turned away and flung open another door. In this world, there was no such thing as death. He saw a village like that below Castle Calavere, its dirt streets littered with bundles of sticks.
Horror blossomed in him. They weren't sticks, but people—withered, decrepit people. They raised desiccated arms, staring with milky eyes, opening toothless mouths in moans of suffering, begging for release. Passersby stared at them with hate, then hurried past.
Travis fled. That wasn't it. A world of peace, of joy, of beauty, that was what he wanted. He found a door beyond which people danced and laughed, smiles on their simple faces. Yes, this was right. Then he drew closer and saw more. At night, monsters dragged the children from their beds and ate them. The people made it a game; they never spoke of the ones who went missing. They simply danced and clapped their hands as shadows prowled just beyond the lights of their small, happy towns.
A thousand doors he opened, and Travis glimpsed a thousand terrible worlds beyond them. He cried out into the nothingness, but there was no one to listen to him. It wasn't supposed to be like this. There had been such sorrow in the old world. War and hatred and violence. What was the use of being the Worldsmith if he couldn't create a world without these things? He wanted a world without pain and suffering, without despair. A world where Beltan and Vani's daughter had a hope of growing up . . .
Travis stopped, letting himself drift in the fog. He reached up to touch the bone talisman at his throat, but of course, like all things, it did not exist.
Yet it could.
He knew a world where there had been pain, and sadness, and death, and where all the same people kept on going, kept on fighting, kept on living. Because they had hope. Hope that they and the ones they loved could someday be happy. Hope that, after night, another day would come.
Yes, he knew a world where there was hope.
Travis searched, and he saw it at once among all of the other possibilities. It seemed so dim and imperfect. No wonder he hadn't noticed it before; surely there were far better worlds to choose than this. Maybe, if he had been a god, he could have found those worlds. But Travis wasn't a god. He was a man. A man who loved and hated. Who laughed and wept. Who feared. And who hoped.
Even as he wondered how to make his choice, he did.
Eldh, he whispered to the mist. For the world to be, I choose the world that was.
Somewhere, there was a sound like a door shutting.
And then.
60.
Beneath a flawless cerulean sky, Grace Beckett, Queen of Malachor, opened her eyes.
For a time she simply lay there without moving, nestled in the embrace of the ground, content to gaze upward. The sunlight was like a warm caress on her cheeks, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. She couldn't remember ever seeing anything so beautiful as this sky in all her life.
“Over here!” a man's voice shouted, breaking the silence. “I've found her—over here!”
More shouts came in reply, though too distant for Grace to make out what was said. She heard the thud of boots draw closer, followed by the jingle of chain mail as someone knelt beside her. She couldn't see who it was; the sky filled her gaze.
“Your Majesty, can you hear me?” said a man, the same one who had shouted. “Are you well?”
What a strange question! She felt no pain, no fear, no sorrow. Why shouldn't she be well? Nothing could possibly be wrong when you were already dead. She would lie here in the embrace of the ground and watch the sky forever.
The sound of more boots,