The Gem Lords

The Resolution - Part 2

Thomas returned to Lexandria Valley five days later to take the oath.

All knowledge of the secret of immortality had already been wiped from his mind by Saturn's amnesia spell, back aboard the Jules Verne, but the information was doubtless stored in several places in the Realms where he would be sure to find it again sooner or later, and so he was made to take the oath along with all the other gem raks.

All the University's senior wizards stood around him as he did so, and when he'd finished to their satisfaction he was followed by Topaz, who'd come with him. Topaz was wearing a vigorous, powerfully muscled body with an apparent age of around fifty, the body of someone dangerous to trifle with. He'd changed into it specifically for this journey, to impress the wizards, and Thomas could see it having its effect on them. The human tendency to judge people from their appearance was so deeply ingrained into the human psyche that it was too strong to overcome, even for people who knew that the gem raks could change bodies the way other men change clothes.

Thomas, in contrast, was still wearing the body he'd been given after his transformation, identical to the body he'd had before the transformation. He didn't want there to be any difference that would remind Lirenna of what had happened to him. The wizards knew, though, and he could feel the hostility radiating from them like heat from a fire.

Saturn just glared at him without saying a word, as if he'd committed a crime of such seriousness that it could never be forgiven (which, from his point of view, he had, even though Thomas had had no choice in it), while the other wizards watched him carefully, as if he might lash out at them with his rak powers at any moment. At least none of the junior wizards he'd counted as his friends were there, he thought gratefully. If Edward had been there, or Tassley Kimber, staring accusingly at him with her beautiful blue eyes, he didn't think he'd have been able to take it. They all thought he was dead, though, and he knew, from a quick glimpse in the imaging chamber during a brief visit to the Realms, that Tassley was still shut up in her rooms, crying her eyes out. Only the knowledge that the truth would hurt her even more prevented him from going to her and trying to comfort her. He no longer had any comfort to give.

Standing there, he thought back to his reunion with Lirenna in the way station in the Overgreen Forest. It had been a moment of agonising uncertainty. They had stood and stared at each other, the demi shae just drinking in the sight of him as if she were trying to disbelieve an illusion, and then her face had slowly lit up with dawning joy as she'd realised that it was real, that it really was him. Her husband, alive and waiting for her. The knowledge of what he was still lay there, in the heart of her, Thomas knew as Topaz's voice droned on, but right now it didn't seem to matter to her. Thomas was alive, they were together and, apart from his commutes to and from the Realms, they would never be separated again so long as she lived. Nothing else mattered. They would return to their married life together, and they would be so happy. So content, that not even Derrin would realise that anything had changed.

There would be a problem when Thomas's body began to grow old, of course. Getting a new, younger body would be simple for him, but it would give away what he was to everyone who saw him. Thomas wasn't too worried about that, though. By then Derrin would be grown up and would have moved out to make a life of his own. Maybe Thomas and Lirenna could move somewhere far away, where nobody knew them. Thomas put the question out of his mind for now, though. They had decades before they had to worry about that. Plenty of time to think of something.

Finally, Topaz reached the end of the interminably convoluted wording of the oath and he fell silent, waiting to see if the wizards would require anything else of them. "Thank you," said the Director. "You have fulfilled your part of the agreement. You may now return to the Realms and continue, whatever it is you're doing there. And you," he said, turning to Thomas, "may return to your wife."