EPILOGUE

Once more, he was without body, drifting. Currents tugged him this way and that, but the strongest of them was pulling him down, to the place of his former exile, the grey, diminished place where he had lived so many impoverished, frustrating lives. He had been so close—how long before he had another chance? A century? A millennium?

Longer.

He still had them, the little lights he had collected. They still shone as brightly as when he first salvaged them from their coffins of flesh. But they would not sustain him for long, not in the Reign of the Departed.

Down in the bottom of him, what was left of the Sheriff was laughing. He tried to shutter him away, overpower him with his own thoughts, but he couldn’t. Still, it built his anger. It grew in him like a black star. Though he was without substance, he fought with the only things he had left. His ancient, implacable will. His fury.

It came out of him like a scream, and although there was no sound, Creation heard it, deep in its bones. He had no substance—he couldn’t move a feather—but he could be heard. At least he could do that.

He began to lose himself. Terror, apprehension—thought itself vanished as he became all rage and wrath. And resistance.

Still the tide pulled him out, toward that dark shore of the universe. But he no longer cared.

Eventually, he realized some other force was tugging at him. It was slight when it began, not enough to stop his fall, but it gradually grew stronger, until finally he was at rest.

He felt himself lifted up, slowly at first, but with gathering speed. No longer down, but higher, and much farther away.