Authors: David Eddings
Regina's Song (36 page)
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“Queen to bishop three,” Trish reported.
“She’s right on time,” I said, checking the dashboard clock. “She just took the Snohomish cutoff.”
The chess moves came in rapid sequence for a while as everybody reported the various turnoffs. If somebody out there was trying to follow the game on a standard chessboard, he was probably pretty confused by now. We had a six-player chess game, and we were making moves that were
way
off the board. You almost never see “rook to queen nineteen” in a regular chess game.
We were about a minute and a half behind schedule when we reached Granite Falls, so I tromped down on the gas pedal to pick up the lost time. We passed a road sign that said VERLOT 9 MI.
“After you pass Verlot, you’ll want to take the Darrington cutoff at Silverton, Mark,” Father O’Donnell told me. “Then you’d better slow down. We have to be absolutely certain that nobody’s following us.”
“Right,” I agreed. “That’s pretty rough country up there.”
“You’re familiar with it?”
“My dad and I used to fish in the south fork of the Stillaguamish River. We pulled some pretty good-sized steelhead out of there. Is the road to the cloister marked at all?”
“No,” he replied. “It looks just like any other Forest Service road. There’s a gate about a quarter of a mile in. It’s kept locked, but I’ve got the key.”
“Good. After we pass the roadblock at Verlot, I’ll stay off the radio. I don’t
think
anybody’s going to crack our code, but let’s not take any chances.”
Just before we reached Verlot, I saw three Highway Patrol cars parked at the side of the road. One of the patrolmen waved me on through, and then I watched in the rearview mirror as two of the patrol cars pulled out to block the road while the third one went down the road to swing in behind the reporters.
“King’s pawn to king six,” I reported. “Check.” Behind us I saw the two press cars screech to a halt as the Highway Patrolmen flagged them down. “Checkmate!” I announced gleefully.
Four other checkmates followed in rapid succession. I’m sure that there were unhappy reporters scattered all over Snohomish County along about then.
“Where are we supposed to go after we drop Ren off at the cloister?” Mary asked from the backseat.
“We’ll go on into Darrington and then hook on back toward Arlington,” I told her. “Then we’ll take I-Five to Mount Vernon. That’s where we’ll stop for gas—just on the off chance that one of the reporters has spotted us again. After that, we’ll take a scenic tour of Skagit County and wind up back in Everett about two in the morning.”
“That’s a long night,” she said.
“The pay’s pretty good, though,” I replied.
I drove up to Silverton, turned left, and crossed the bridge that spanned the Stillaguamish River onto the Darrington cutoff. I glanced off to the west. The clouds were all turning red as the sun went down. “How far to the turnoff, Father O’Donnell?” I asked.
“About three more miles,” he replied. “You’d better slow down a bit. It’s not marked, and it’s a little hard to see if you’re going fast.”
“Right,” I said, backing off to about thirty miles an hour.
We crept along the narrow, two-lane road as the sunset painted the western sky bright red.
Father O’Donnell was peering intently through the windshield. “There it is,” he told me, pointing on ahead.
It was a narrow, badly rutted dirt road on the right-hand side, and it looked very much like any one of a thousand or more Forest Service roads that run off among the trees on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains.
“Checkmates cleared,” Bob’s voice came over the radio.
“Perfect,” I said, slowing down and turning onto the dirt road. “The Highway Patrol just now turned the reporters loose. They’re fifteen miles behind us, and it’ll be dark before long. Charlie’s going to be impossible to live with for a while, but his scam worked exactly the way it was supposed to.”
“That’s what really matters, Mark,” Mary said from the backseat. “Let him brag about it if he wants to.”
“How’s Renata doing?” I asked her.
“She seems calm enough. I think she might have sensed something—not consciously, maybe, but the fact that we’re all very happy about the way this has turned out might have seeped through to her.”
If James had been anywhere close to being right, the surviving twin was probably much more aware of what was happening around her than she appeared to be. I devoutly wished that James had kept his theory to himself. Every time I turned around, it seemed, I kept coming face-to-face with the very disturbing possibility that it was Regina in that backseat.
“There’s the gate, Mark,” Father O’Donnell told me. “Stop here and I’ll go open it for you.”
“Right,” I said. I eased to a stop, and he got out of the limo. He unlocked the gate and swung it open. I drove through and stopped to wait while he closed and locked the gate, then got back into the front seat.
“How much farther?” I asked him.
“About a half mile. Take it slow—the road’s a little rough.”
I crept on through the woods at no more than five miles an hour, and we finally came to what appeared to be a turnaround—one of those end-of-the-road wide places.
“Stop here, Mark,” the father told me. “I’ll go tell the mother superior that we’re here.”
“Right.” I stopped the limo and turned off the key.
Father O’Donnell got out and crossed the muddy clearing to an opening in the woods that appeared to be one of those hiking trails that wander around all over the Cascade Mountains. He quickly disappeared into the forest.
I glanced back. Mary was holding Twinkie in her arms and rocking gently back and forth, with tears running down her cheeks. This had been the best solution we’d been able to come up with, but it still hit us all pretty hard. I tried my best to push the possibility James had suggested out of my mind. It didn’t really matter now which twin it was that Mary was holding. Renata or Regina—or maybe Renata
and
Regina—was rapidly approaching the ultimate sanctuary. I still had a long night ahead of me, and I couldn’t afford to let my emotions run away with me.
Twilight was beginning to seep out of the woods, but it was still light enough that we could see.
Father O’Donnell came back along the trail and motioned to us.
“Could you take her, Mark?” Mary asked me. “I don’t think I’m up to it.” Her voice was thick and sort of choked up.
“I’ll take care of it, Mary,” I said. I got out and opened the back door. “It’s only me, Twinkie,” I said gently. “We’re almost there now.”
Twinkie reached her arms out to me, and there seemed to be a faint flicker of recognition in her eyes—almost a question.
I probably could have led her along the trail that obviously led to the cloister. But that didn’t quite seem appropriate, so I picked her up and carried her instead. She wrapped her arms around my neck as I crossed the muddy clearing, and she murmured to me in twin, her face very close to mine. The soft, lisping sibilance of the secret language brushed my cheek as I carried her toward Father O’Donnell.
Together we walked slowly along that trail. It was pretty dark back in under the trees, but after about a hundred yards we came to another clearing, and there was the cloister.
It was a low grey building nestled in among the trees and surrounded by a wall. It probably wasn’t even visible from the air.
“Wait here,” Father O’Donnell told me. Then he crossed the clearing, following a kind of gravel walkway toward a narrow gate in the wall. He pulled on a slender brass chain at one side of the gate, and I heard the faint tinkling of a small bell inside. After a moment, the gate opened, and there was a nun wearing the traditional habit standing there.
There was that peculiar twilight clarity in the clearing—that moment that comes just before sunrise and just after sunset when everything seems to be sharply etched on the surroundings, and there aren’t any shadows.
I set Renata down on the graveled walk, and then I wrapped my arms around her in a brief embrace. “It’s the best we can do, Twinkie,” I told her sadly. “At least you won’t be alone anymore. Good-bye, then.”
She touched my face with her fingertips, and then she briefly kissed my cheek. Then she said something to me in twin, and “Markie” came through very clearly. She obviously recognized me, and that meant that she was to some degree aware of what was happening.
Then she turned and followed the walk in that steel grey, shadowless twilight toward the gate and the waiting Father O’Donnell and the mother superior.
I could see very clearly, because it wasn’t dark yet, so I know with absolute certainty that I
did
see what happened next. There was a kind of brief blur, and then Twinkie wasn’t alone anymore. There were two of them walking toward their sanctuary. They half turned briefly to look back at me, and they were both smiling.
Father O’Donnell crossed himself and stepped out of their way.
The mother superior held her arms out to the twins and led them on inside.
And then the gate closed.
Father O’Donnell had tears in his eyes as he came back across the clearing to join me. Then he started back along the trail toward the limousine.
I was just about to join him, but something lying on the walk caught my eye. There were two ribbons, one blue and one red, lying there on the stones.
I bent over and picked them up. They felt sort of warm, and they looked almost brand-new, with no wrinkles or smudges. I wasn’t really surprised. Regina and Renata were still playing the twin-game, I guess. But it didn’t matter which one was which, because, as always, they were the same. Now they’d left this final gift behind, to let me know that they were children again, and that none of what had happened had made any difference. They were back together again, and that was the only thing that really mattered. Everything was all right now.
I tucked the ribbons into my pocket where they’d be safe. Then I turned back to join Father O’Donnell and Mary in the limousine. Night was gently falling, and we still had a long way to go before we could sleep.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David Eddings published his first novel,
High Hunt
, in 1973, before turning to the field of fantasy and the series The Belgariad and The Malloreon. Born in Spokane, Washington, in 1931, and raised in the Puget Sound area north of Seattle, he received his bachelor of arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in 1954, and a master of arts degree from the University of Washington in 1961. He has served in the United States Army, has worked as a buyer for the Boeing Company, and has been a grocery clerk and a college English teacher.
Leigh Eddings has collaborated with her husband for more than a dozen years.
David and Leigh Eddings live in the Southwest.
By DAVID EDDINGS
Published by Del Rey Books:
THE BELGARIAD
Book One: Pawn of Prophecy
Book Two: Queen of Sorcery
Book Three: Magician’s Gambit
Book Four: Castle of Wizardry
Book Five: Enchanters’ End Game
THE MALLOREON
Book One: Guardians of the West
Book Two: King of the Murgos
Book Three: Demon Lord of Karanda
Book Four: Sorceress of Darshiva
Book Five: The Seeress of Kell
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne
Book Two: The Ruby Knight
Book Three: The Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire
Book Two: The Shining Ones
Book Three: The Hidden City
HIGH HUNT
THE LOSERS
By David & Leigh Eddings
BELGARATH THE SORCERER
POLGARA THE SORCERESS
THE RIVAN CODEX
THE REDEMPTION OF ALTHALUS
A Del Rey
®
Book
Published by The Ballantine Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by David Eddings and Leigh Eddings
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. Published in the United States by The Ballantine Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada
by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon
is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eddings, David.
Regina’s song / by David and Leigh Eddings.
p. ; cm.
I. Eddings, Leigh. II. Title.
PS3555.D38 R454 2002
813′.6—dc21 2002276813
eISBN: 978-0-345-45479-9
v3.0