Star of Gypsies

8. The Grand Compania

What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

I FELT A LITTLE GIDDING THIS PLACE WAS NABOMBA ZOM, THIS MAN WAS LOIZA LA Vakako. Or so it seemed. I had little doubt that I was on Nabomba Zom, for how many other planets do we know where the sea is red as blood and the sand is pale lavender? But was this really Loiza la Vakako? He seemed so young. The man whom I had known once could have been any age at all except young. But this one, strolling by himself along the shore of that boiling sea, seemed no older than I had been myself in that far-off time when I had lived the life of a young prince at the palace of Loiza la Vakako.

I appeared right in front of him, ghost-high above the moist sand. He seemed not at all surprised, almost as if he had been expecting me. Smiled the quick sly smile of Loiza la Vakako. Studied me with those awesome eyes. Young, yes, no doubt of that, hardly more than a boy. But already he was Loiza la Vakako, complete and total. That regal presence. That austerity of spirit, that leanness of soul. That penetrating shrewdness. That calmness that was not mere cow-like placidity, but represented, rather, the absolute victory over self.

"First ghost of the day," he said. "Welcome, whoever you are." "You don't know me?"

"Not yet," said Loiza la Vakako. "Come. Walk with me. This place is Nabomba Zom."

"I know that," I said. "I'm going to live here for a few years, one day when you are older and I am younger. And I will love your daughter. And I will share in your downfall with you."

"Ah," he said. "My daughter. My downfall." He seemed unconcerned. "You're the one, then. You are a king, are you not?"

"Can you see that?"

"Of course. Kings can see kings. Tell me your name, king, and I'll wait for your return with great eagerness."

"I never knew anyone like you," I said. "You are the wisest man who ever lived."

"Hardly. All I am is less foolish than some. Your name, O king." "Yakoub Nirano. Rom baro."

"Ah. Ah. Rom baro! You will love my daughter, eh?" "And lose her," I said.

"Yes. Of course, you will. And find her again, perhaps, afterward?" "No. No, never again."

His elegant face grew solemn. "What will her name be, old man?" I hesitated. This was all forbidden, what I was doing. But it seemed to me that I had lived on into a time beyond the end of the universe, when all the old rules were cancelled.

"Malilini," I said.

"A beautiful name. Yes. Yes. I will call her that, most certainly." Again the quick smile. "Malilini. And you will love her and lose her. How sad, Yakoub Nirano."

"And I will love you," I said. But already I felt myself growing transparent; I was being whirled away. "And I will lose you." And I was gone. Out of control. Whirling. Whirling.

THAT BEAST THERE, STRANGE BEYOND WORDS, THE DOUBLE humps, the great jutting rubbery lips: I think it is the thing they called a camel. So this must be Earth. I am in a dry sandy place, jagged gray hills jutting at disturbing tilted angles in the distance, whirlwinds circling restlessly over the scrubby plain. A caravan of extravagantly costumed people with dark skins, coarse black hair, sparkling eyes, brilliant grins. Black felt tents. Hats with wide turned-up flaps. I have never seen this place or these people before, but I know them.

An open-air forge here, goatskin bellows, great heavy hammers, two smiths banging at red-hot metal. Here, three girls striding side by side, aloof and mysterious, like priestesses of some unknown order. A woman with ten thousand years of wrinkles, busy with beans and slivers of dried grass and the knucklebones of sheep, foretelling the future for a wide-eyed young Gajo. The sound of a flute nearby. The aroma of roasting meat, seasoned with sharp spices.

I allow myself to become visible. A boy dances up to me and stares, unafraid.

"Sarishan," I say. "San tu Rom?"

He has huge shining eyes, a cunning smile, a quick, agile way about him. He says nothing. He continues to stare.

I point to myself "Yakoub," I say. I touch his scarf "Diklo." My nose. "Nak." My teeth. "Dand." My hair. "Bal." He seems not to comprehend a thing. A few of the other Gypsies are looking toward us, now. The old woman fortune-teller smiles and winks. I keep myself invisible to the GaJo. A-smaller boy jogs up to us and clutches the other's arm as he peers at me. "Tu prala?" I ask. "Your brother?" Still no reply. This must be one of the far lands of Earth, I decide, where the Rom speak a language other than Romany. From my tunic I take two glittering gold coins of the Imperium, bearing the features of the Fifteenth on one side and a scattering of stars on the other. I hold the coins up before the boys.

They are ghost-coins, without substance, without weight. They will vanish like snow in summer the moment I depart. But the boys stare at them with awe. They know gold, at any rate.

"From Galgala," I tell them. "From the stars, from the time to come." I lay the coins in the palms of their hands. They poke at them, frowning, trying to touch them. But to them the coins are nothing more than golden air. "I wish I could give you a more lasting gift. I am your cousin Yakoub. "

"Yakoub," the smaller boy murmurs.

The whirlwinds are starting up again. I begin to fade. The boys look saddened. The coins are fading too.

"Yakoub!" the smaller boy cries. "Yakoub!"

"Ashen Devlesa," says the older boy suddenly in clear Romany as I disappear. "May you remain with God!"

OUT OF CONTROL. ONWARD I GO. WHIRLING. WHIRLING. I might almost have been on a relay-sweep journey. I had that same sense of hanging suspended above the entire universe, flying swiftly from somewhere to somewhere through a vast soup of nowhere, with nothing to shelter me from the black inrushing strangeness of the cosmos except an imaginary wall of force not even as thick as a bubble. And I could no more govern the direction of my flight than I could the movements of the suns.

But this trip of mine now, it was free fall through time as well as space. I was going everywhere. I was going anywhere. Nothing at all held me in place; I was without moorings; I was a straw blown by the gods.

I needed to regain command. But how? How?

MENTIROSO, NOW UNQUESTIONABLY MENTIROSO THAT sense of inexplicable and inescapable fear, bubbling through your veins, stirring in your gut. The closeness of unfriendly gods conjuring panic without reason. The hot scent of terror on the thick heavy breezes.

Look, there: the synapse pit of Nikos Hasgard. Those men sitting side by side in the stirrups, twitchy little Polarca, big sturdy Yakoub. They both look exhausted. Bowed, trembling, pale. I keep myself hidden from them as I float down. I stand behind them and let my right hand rest on Yakoub's shoulder and my left on Polarca's. I will try to send my strength into them both. Is that possible? A ghost aiding two living men? Well, I try. I try. I reach into myself and find the core of my vitality and tap it, and draw power forth from myself, and send it down my arms into my fingers and attempt to thrust it on into them.

Is it working? They seem to sit a little straighter. They regain some of their color. Yes. Yes. Here, Yakoub, here, Polarca, take, take, take! They look at each other. Something is happening but they don't have any idea what it is.

"You feel it?" Polarca says.

"Yes. As if energy is coming up out of the equipment instead of going down into it."

"No. Not out of the equipment. Out:of somewhere else. Out of the sky."'

"Out of the sky?" Yakoub says

Polarca nods. "Or out of the air. Out of the fog. Who knows? Who cares?"

I will stay with them as long as I can. A day, a week, a month-it is all the same to me. I live outside of space and time. And they need me.

But the fear-the fearEven ghosts feel it.

And I feel it reaching me, coming up through them in amplified strength. The fear that makes your teeth clack and your balls contract and your urine turn to ice. That fear is the glue that binds the cosmos together. The fundamental substance, the universal matrix. Conquer it at your risk; for if you do, you drive a wedge between atom and atom, and the universe begins to crumble. Nevertheless I struggle against it.

I will not let the terror overwhelm me. I fight and I fight well, and I thrust it back; I beat it down; I trample it, I crush it, I destroy it. I am on Mentiroso and I am unafraid. And in that moment of no fear I see the little line of black that is the first crack in the fundament of the worlds. I have done it, I, me, Yakoub Nirano, I have driven the first wedge, and now it widens, now it yawns, now it is a broad dark chasm reaching outward, devouring everything it touchesI am swept away in the gale of chaos.

MEGALO KASTRO-DUUD SHABEEL-ALTA HANNALANNATrinigalee ChaseVietoris, Mount Salvat, standing beside my huge father Romano NiranoMegalo KastroAlta HannalannaXamur-Galgala-Earth-Earth-EarthMulanoAlta HannalannaEarth-Earth-EarthWhirling-whirling-helpless-out of control.

THE WINTER IS ENDING THE WARM WINDS ARE BLOWING from the south. The Rom will take to the road again soon. Green pastures, fields of oats and barley ahead. Cool clear mountain springs. Horses hooves' thudding against the roads still damp from melting snow, the wagon wheels rattling, the intoxicating joy of movement, fresh air, the rebirth of life.

We come to the camp of our cousins down the road. We do not know them, but they are our cousins. Sixty campfires burn that night. The scent of roasting meat is everywhere. It is a glorious patshiv, a feast of feasts, two kumpanias meeting on the great highway of the world. Our men are singing by the fire now, toasting our cousins, our hosts. Old songs, songs of our grandparents' grandparents, telling of travels long ago.

A girl comes forth, very dark, very young. Her eyes are shut; she might be in a trance. She sings and a boy hardly a year older than she comes up and stands before her: he has entered her trance. When she is done he begins to dance around her, feet slapping the ground almost angrily, but there is no anger in him, only delight and exuberance. His body leaps, but his arms and torso remain almost still. He sings to her. She laughs. His song ends and he stands staring at her, but he does not speak. They exchange shy smiles and nothing more. And then they retreat, she to her kumpania, he to his; but perhaps he will find her again before the night is over.

Roast beef, chicken, suckling pig. An old grandfather is dancing now, slapping his knees, clicking his booted heels together. Faster, faster, hands clapping, arms swinging. And now the boys; and now the men; and now everyone, first in a circle, then in a long oval loop, then in no pattern at all, for there are too many to hold in a pattern.

Ah, this is the life! The life of the road!

Dogs barking now. Sudden cries of alarm from the darkness on the rim of the encampment. Shouts, the sound of a shot, another shot. "Shangle!" someone cries. "Police! Police!" Riding on horses, coming to drive us away. What have we done? Only to camp here, and make a feast for our cousins, and sing, and dance. Maybe singing and dancing are unlawful in this place. "Shangle! Shangle!" Horses. Police dogs. Shots fired in the air. Men shouting in anger. Cursing, spitting. What have we done? What have we done? It must be the singing. It must be the dancing. They ride right through our midst and we dare not lift a hand against them. For they are the GaJe police; and we, we are only the dirty homeless Gypsies, who must move with care in their world. So we scatter, and the feasting is no more.

I HAVE NO CHOICE. IF I LET MYSELF GO WHIRLING ON randomly through time, I am lost, all is lost. This is mere wandering. Randomness is meaninglessness. We have wandered long enough. Now it is time to find meaning. I need to impose control over my voyage. I need to impose meaning.

Who am I? I am Yakoub Nirano, King of the Gypsies. Where was I born? I was born on Vietoris, long ago. Where do I live? Everywhere and nowhere.

Where am I bound? Nowhere and everywhere.

What am I searching for? For the true home of my wandering people. Where is that? Everywhere and nowhere, nowhere and everywhere. Lost in time. Lost in space. But not beyond the possibility offinding. I will look. I think I know where to look.

Back-back I AM SWEPT AWAY AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME IT IS DIFFERENT I am no longer floundering helplessly. This time I begin to feel some measure of command over my voyage.

I KNOW THIS PLACE EVEN IN THE THICK MIST THAT shrouds everything I can see the blueness of the sky, I can see the bright gold of the sun, I can see the whiteness of the thousand marble columns in the plaza. I have gone very far back now. I know this place, yes. I have been here before. This is Earth, the ancient Earth beyond history; and this place is lost Atlantis. This is the great Rom city, the most beautiful place on Earth that ever was.

How serene it is. Our island kingdom, white sands and sparkling sea. How well we have built here: what grace, what order. Alone and undisturbed I move through the long straight streets, among the dark slender people in white robes and sandals. Past the Concourse of the Sky, into the Street of Starwatchers, down the marble causeway to the waterfront. The city gleams through the mist. I envy those who live here in the city's own time, for they can see it plain; this dense mist is none of theirs, but is something I bring with me, out of the thousands of years across which I have come. It is unavoidable, so far back. But if Atlantis is this lovely, shrouded for me as it is, what must it be to those who see it shining brightly in the full sun!

I am at the water now. To my left stands the Temple of the Dolphins, pure and serene, a symphony in white stone. To my right is the Fountain of the Spheres; and straight in front of me lies the Grand Quay, with six fine ships riding at anchor, and one more farther out, coming in with its cargo of gold and silver and apes and peacocks, of precious stones, of pearls, of odors and ointments, of frankincense, wine and oil, all manner vessels of ivory, all manner vessels of most precious wood. This world of Earth is ours and all good things that are upon it; for we alone are civilized folk. The Gaje who live everywhere about us, beyond the waters of the sea that shelter us from them, are little more than beasts, and some not even that. So we go forth and take what we want and our ships bring it to us across the shimmering blue-green sea, and with it we make our city wondrous beautiful.

I will stay here forever, is what I tell myself now.

No matter the mists. No matter that I am only a ghost. I will become a citizen of this Atlantis and dwell here to the end of my days. I will drink the thick red wine in the taverns and I will dine on roasted meats and olives. No matter that I am a ghost and have no need of wine and meats and olives. I am here and here I will stay, deep in the depths of time, cloaked by mist, in a place where the Rom are lords and there is nothing to fear.

But what's this, now? Wavelets tremble at the edge of the shore. A fringe of gentle surf clear as glass laps against the marble piers and jetties, and pulls away, and surges back, not nearly so gentle this time.

The ships riding at anchor rise and fall, and slap the breast of the sea with their hulls.

The ship that is still out at sea vanishes for an instant beneath the horizon, and reappears, lurching, rolling.

The ground trembles. The sky shakes.

Ah, what is this, what is this? A roaring in my ears. The mist clears and I turn to see the mountain behind the city belching fire and black smoke. Great slabs of marble drop from the pediment of the Temple of the Dolphins. Farther up the slope in the Plaza of the Thousand Columns I can see the columns toppling like sticks. The roaring grows louder and louder.

There is no panic. The men and women in the white robes and the sandals move purposefully about, heading for their homes. A marble street splits and rises in the center, revealing steaming black earth below. Horses bolt and run whinnying through the marketplace. A chariot without a rider comes my way and passes through me and is gone.

Atlantis! Atlantis! Today I will see your ruining!

Where is the mist? I want the mist to come back. But no, now everything is clear, mercilessly clear. Every jagged crack, every furrow in the stone. There is still no panic, but I hear them crying out now, begging for the mercy of the gods. Have we not suffered enough? Must we be shattered here also, after we were driven forth from that other place of beauty in the stars?

Atlantis! Atlantis! Alas, that great city. Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade at sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city! For in one hour is she made desolate.

ATLANTIS IS NOT THE ANSWER. PERHAPS THERE IS NO answer. I am swept away. I am hurled far and far and far, deep and deep and deep. There is no answer. Or if there is one, I do not have the courage to seek it. I spin once more like a seed on the wind. I go on and on, not knowing where, not caring, giving myself over completely into the power of the gods that drive my fate. What does it matter, where I go? What does anything matter? All is lost, is that not so? The Imperiurn is fallen. Quarreling little lords pick and snarl over its yellowing bones. There is no center; there are no boundaries. And in that chaos how can we survive? The Rom will be blown once more on the winds. As I am now.

On. Far. Deep.

Whirling randomly once again, Yakoub?

But this is wrong. If there is an answer to the riddles of your life, you will never find it in this aimless fluttering. You had control; take it again. Go back again. Go back as far as you dare, and then go back even farther. Go to the source, Yakoub.

Go to the source.

Risk it all, or all is lost. Back. Back. To the source, Yakoub. On. Far. Deep.

INTO A LAND WHERE THE MISTS OF TIME ARE SO THICK and heavy that they shroud everything like a winding-sheet, binding tight and close. And mist within mist, clotted masses of white within white. What could have woven this cocoon about the world? Why, it is time itself that has done it. I have gone very far back, farther than I ever thought was possible. I am beyond Rome, beyond Egypt, beyond Atlantis, deep in antiquity. Nor is this Earth. I have no idea where I am, but it is not Earth: it does not have the smell of Earth, it does not have the feel of Earth. Perhaps I have gone back beyond Earth. Perhaps I have reached the source. Is that possible? The idea frightens me. I grope through dark realms of whiteness. Soft strands of mist entangle me. Smothering wisps of it cover my eyes and my nose and my mouth. I see mist; I breathe mist; I eat mist. There is nothing here but mist. Have I come to the beginning of time?

In the dimness, by the lightless light of a shrouded sun, I imagine now that I can see shadows, or at least the shadows of shadows. Perhaps there is something here after all, some substance, some tangibility. A city? That shadowy arch there: is it a bridge? And that, a tower? That, a boulevard? Do I see trees? Figures moving about? Yes. I think my eyes are growing accustomed now. It takes some getting used to, this mist. Or perhaps what it takes is a colossal effort of will, in order to see here. Not-seeing is easy: your eyes will do that for you. Simply open them and they will show you the mist. That is all your eyes will show you: the mist. But seeing something more takes work. You have to throw all your soul into it. It is like a game where the odds are stacked so heavily against you that a small wager is useless; gamble everything on the next toss of the dice, or else move along to a different table. Do you want to see what is here, Yakoub? Then meet the stake. Put up all you have. And then even more. Yes.

I think the mists are beginning to clear.

Yes. Yes. Beyond question, the mists are beginning to clear. There is a chrysalis within this cocoon. Everything is being revealed to me. Here is a city indeed. I see bridges, towers, boulevards. I see trees. I see figures. I see a sun in the sky.

This place is no place I have ever seen before. And yet it seems to me I know it like the fingers of my own hand. The mist is completely gone now and I see everything clearly, with an odd dreamlike intensity, as though through a glass that magnifies. How strange this place is! I have seen so many worlds that I can no longer count them all, worlds of such strangeness that the mind can scarcely encompass it; and yet I feel something here that I have never felt anywhere else.

I move slowly and warily through these strange streets. Timid ghost, glancing this way and that. The city is vast. It sweeps over hills and valleys as far as I can see, dense and populous, though broken frequently by plazas, parks, watercourses, promenades. The people have dark solemn eyes that sparkle with unfamiliar knowledge. Their black hair is braided in elaborate knots. Their clothes are shimmering strings of beads falling in free cascades. They pay no attention to me; perhaps they are unable to see me, or perhaps they have no interest in me. Where am I? What world is this? I know this place, though I have never seen it before. These buildings, these streets. The streets are straight but they cross at angles that bewilder the eye. The buildings have an eerie alien beauty that is nevertheless familiar. This is not my first visit to this place where I have never been before. What does that mean? What am I trying to say? Words I never thought to speak. Streets I never thought I should revisit, when I left my body on a distant shore.

The sun is red. It fills a fourth of the sky.

But though that great sun blazes above me, I am able to see the stars also, thousands of them, millions, a field of light in the heavens. There are no constellations here; there is only light.

And the moons! Jesu Cretchuno Sunto Mario, the moons!

They are like a jeweled belt across the whole vast arc of the sky. From horizon to horizon they hang in a sublime row, glittering, burning, seven, eight, ten dazzling moons-no, eleven, eleven moons, bright as little suns. If this is how they look by day, what must the night be like here?

Eleven moons. Red sun. The stars shining by day. Eleven moons.

Red sun.

The stars shining by day.

I know where I am now, and the astounding truth sweeps through me like the wave from the sea that carries the mountains away. I have traveled a long way, and I have arrived where I meant to go all along. Despite the fears and the hesitations that have held me back, the long quest has ended in success.

Tears flood my eyes. I want to drop to my knees in awe. This is the place, yes. Here in our first world is where I am. The forbidden place, the holy place. At the still point of the turning world, where past and future are gathered. We may go ghosting anywhere in time and space, but not here; it is not lawful to go here, it is not even possible to go here. It is beyond reach. Or so I have thought. So have we all thought. And yet I have achieved it. I am here. I have come home.

This is Romany Star.

How can I doubt it? There is Mulesko Chiriklo, the bird of the dead, swooping, soaring: silent wings, bright staring eyes. I have passed through that unknown, remembered gate, into the one place that is all places for us. The gales of time have blown me to the far end of time. Those were the mists of dawn that I had had to push aside. And now I see with terrible clarity, in this place which has always been forbidden to us, and which we have believed to lie beyond the range of all ghosting. I am here. I alone have made the impossible journey. Time past and time future point to one end, which is always present. For me now there can be neither past nor future. My destiny has come round upon itself. In my end is my beginning.

The sky over Romany Star is exactly as it is said to be in the legends. Red sun, eleven moons, stars shining by day. The tale-tellers were faithful to that much, at least, in the thousands and thousands of years of the telling of the tale.

But nothing else is as I expect it to be. Shining marble palaces, says the Swatura. Splendid towers, vast concourses, broad highways, gleaming temples of many columns. No. That is Atlantis, not Romany Star. We built differently in our second home, and forgot that we did. Here is beauty also, but of another sort, less formal, less monumental. Nothing seems permanent. They use no stone here. They have woven this city of some delicate reed; everything is pliant, everything is yielding. Towers, yes, and bridges and boulevards, but they ripple in the gentle breezes, and change form at a touch. There will be nothing left of this place when the time of the swelling of the sun arrives. A dry wind, a gust of heat, a puff of flame: and then nothing but ashes within hours. No charred monuments for future archaeologists to puzzle over; no stumps of fallen obelisks; no foundations, no walls, no mosaics. Nothing. Ashes. Instantly. It is all very beautiful now; it all will perish in a very beautiful way, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, leaving no doleful relicts behind.

Hundreds of people stream past me into a building larger than the others just across the way from me. I join the flow and enter with them, unnoticed, unhindered. A green light shines inside, but its source eludes me. I pass through corridors strewn with woven mats into rooms that yield to other rooms, and at last I come to one room of great size, plainly a meeting-hall, where the citizens of Romany Star have assembled by the thousands.

At the far end of the room a sort of hammock which is also a sort of a throne has been strung high above the floor. It is occupied by a man who by his look could well have been my brother. There is kingliness about him: I see it at once, and.1 would have seen it even if I had simply met him in the street and not come upon him enthroned in a great hall. His hair is braided in the ancient way and he wears the beaded clothing. But his face is mine, his eyes are mine. He is my brother. No, we are closer than that. He is me.

He is speaking to his people. Not a word that he says can I understand; and yet I feel reassurance emanating from him, I feel his strength, his calmness. He speaks gravely and they listen to him gravely. It is a long speech, and everyone remains perfectly still to the end of it. Then, in silence, one by one, they go to him and they touch their hands to his. The ceremony continues for hours, an endless procession of the people to their monarch. I find it tremendously moving and I am unable to leave; the line edges forward and I edge with it, until I see that I am near the front, that in another moment I will be at its head. There is no way that I can turn away. I am visible to them all. It would be a dire insult to spurn this man's blessing now, whatever it may mean. So I go forward and I stretch out my hands and he touches his hands to them. Even though I am here as a ghost, he touches my hands, just as he has touched those of his own people.

For all the others, the touch was only a moment. But me he holds, me he detains. I feel the tremendous vitality of him flowing into me. I see the great sadness and wisdom of his spirit shining in his eyes. Yes, he is a true king. There are only a few kings born in any epoch, and they know from birth who they are. I am one, even if I have not always lived up to my kingliness. This man is another. We are of one soul, he and I. I love him for his strength; I love him for his sadness; I love him for his wisdom. I love him as one loves a king. I love him as one loves a father. I love him as one loves one's own self.

He holds me a long while. It seems like hours.

He says nothing, but I feel that we are conversing at length. Much is passing from him to me, and from me to him. Behind me no one moves; we could be alone in the hall. In the spark that travels from his hands to mine and from mine to his are all the Rom who ever lived; we bridge the race from end to end, this king and I. Within him is a sense of all our destiny to come, and within me is a sense of all that has befallen us; and we pass these things back and forth between each other. Time past, time future, pointing to one end. Which is always present.

He offers me courage. There death is not the end of anything, he says. It is only an interruption. Men die, women die, planets die: but certain things continue. What matters is to continue; and there are many ways of continuing. We have sent our sixteen ships out into the Great Dark. That is our way of continuing.

And in return I give him hope. You have achieved what you meant to achieve, I say. You have allowed us to continue; and we have done the job. Look, I am here to show you that we still exist at the far end of time. We are all part of the grand kumpania, all we Rom, your people and mine. One blood, one people. One grand kumpania. We have continued you. We have wandered very far, as was the gods' decree for us, but we have not lost our sense of who we are. And-look-I am here to pledge to you that soon we wanderers will be coming home, to this place that has always been ours.

I am you, I tell him. And you are me. I am you, he tells me. And you are me.

He releases me. When I walk away, I carry within me the fullness of this great Rom civilization of Romany Star: its grandeur, its tragedy, its wisdom, its poetry. Its grandeur is its tragedy; its wisdom is its poetry. These are people who are waiting to die. I know now when I have arrived. The omens have come, the lottery has been held, the sixteen ships have been built and have gone off into the Great Dark. These are the ones who were left behind. They will die. Everyone dies, and for each it is the end of the world; but for these millions here the death of one will be the death of all. They have made their peace with death. They have made their peace with the end of the world.

And in their end is their beginning. For I am the emissary from worlds to come, testifying to their continuation down through the passageways of time. I have come to tell them that the circle will be made whole, that the exile will soon be ending, that I am the one who will bring our people home. ven reeds again, this I find myself outside this great building of wonder palace of the last king of Romany Star.

I stare at the red sun that nearly fills the sky, until my eyes begin to throb and ache. aring right Ah there, you red sun, you are Romany Star, and I am St at you! I tremble. O Tchalai, the Star of Wonder. O Netchaphoro, the Luminous Crowng the Carrier of Light, the Halo of God. There you are hanging in the heavens before me! Star of wonder, star of night. And star of day as well. Star of Gypsies, toward whom we have yearned throughout all our days. There you are.

I tremble and the red star trembles with me.

It seems to me that its color has deepened and that eddies and whirlpools are moving on the face of it. This is the last day. The air grows warm. Yes, yes, the red star is warmer now. Swelling. Churning.

O Tchalai! O Netchaphoro! This is the moment, yes, the time of the swelling of the sun, the moment of Romany Star! The Rom have come forth from their houses by the thousands, by the millions, and they stand beside me in the streets, joining their arms together, watching. Waiting. Someone begins to sing. Someone else picks up the song. And then anotherg and another. The language in which they sing is unknown to me, though it must be some grandfather of the Romany that I speak. Nor do I know the words of the song, nor the melody. They are all singing now, and now I join them. I throw my head back, I open my mouth, and my heart gives me the song; and I sing, loud and clear. I can hear my own voice above all the others for a moment, and then it blends with them in a perfect harmony as the red sun grows larger and larger and yet larger in the sky.

THEN A WRENCHING, A TWISTING, A PAINFUL SENSE OF being torn loose. Of movement across time, across space. The smell of burning was in my nostrils when I opened my eyes. As though I was breathing ash; as though the air itself was singed. I felt lost. Where was the red glow of Romany Star? Gone. Gone. The sound of the singing on that last day still echoed in my ears; but where were the singers? Where was I? Why had I not been allowed to remain with them for their last moment?

Perhaps I had, and I had died with them, and I had gone to hell. Had I? Was this hell that I was in now? I had traveled so far, to so many places; why not hell too?

I was lying down, perhaps in a bed; there were people around me; their faces were indistinct, indistinguishable. Their voices were vague murmurs. My eyes were betraying me. My hearing. Everything was a blur. Romany Star was gone. That was the one certain reality. Romany Star was gone. And that smell of burning-that hideous taste of ashes that came to me with every breath I drew"Yakoub?" A gentle voice, far away. I knew that voice. Polarca, my little Lowara horse-trader.

"Yakoub, are you awake?"

Not hell, then. Unless Polarca was in hell with me.

I managed a scowl and a laugh. "Of course I'm awake, idiot! Can't you see that my eyes are open?"

He was bending close Over me, nose to my nose. Seeing him helped me bring into focus the others, those blurred shapes behind him. Damiano my cousin. Thivt. Chorian. And others, farther back, not so easy for me to make out. Bibi Savina? Yes. Was that Syluise? Yes! Biznaga, Jacinto, Ammagante. Was everyone here? Yes, so it seemed.

Even Julien. The treacherous one, even him, at my bedside. All right, I would forgive him. He was my friend; let him be here. And who was that? Valerian? Not Valerian's ghost, but the actual Valerian? How could that be? No one ever saw the actual Valerian any more. Was I dreaming that he was here?

I have been to the morning of time. I have seen Romany Star. And now I have come back.

"What is this?" I growled. "Why are you all hovering around me? What's going on?"

"You've been asleep for weeks," said Damiano.

"Weeks?" I sat up, or tried to, and found myself infuriatingly weak. My arms and elbows refused to obey me. Like strands of spaghetti, they were. Damn them! I pushed myself up anyway. "What world is this?" "The Capital," Polarca said.

I shook my head, letting things sink in. "Asleep for weeks, and this is the Capital. Ah. Ah. How could it be weeks? I was off ghostingjust for a minute or two, ghosting never takes very long-"

I looked around. Medical equipment everywhere. "Have I been sick?"

"A long sleep," Polarca said. "Like a coma. We knew you were in there. We could see your eyes moving. Sometimes you shouted things in strange languages. Once you sang, but nobody could make out the words."

"I was ghosting. A great many places.

Syluise came forward and took my hand. She looked as beautiful as ever, but older, more somber, the flash and glitter gone from her beauty. "Yakoub, Yakoub! We were so worried! Where did you go?"

I shrugged. "Atlantis. Mentiroso. Xamur. All sorts of places. That doesn't matter." I have seen Romany Star. "Why does it smell like this in here? Am I imagining it? Everything smells burned."

"Everything is burned," Chorian said. "Everything?"

"There's been a great deal of damage,"' said Polarca. "The lunatic GaJe have smashed their Capital to shards in their lunatic war. But It's done with now. Everything's quiet. You should see what it looks like out there, Yakoub."

"Let me see."

"In a little while. When you're strong enough to get up." "I'm strong enough to get up now."

"Yakoub-"

"Now," I said.

They were exchanging troubled glances. Trying to figure out some way to prevent me. Not strong enough, was I? To hell with them. I swung my legs out of the bed and put some weight on them. The first pressure against the floor was agony; I thought my feet were on fire, that my ankles were exploding. I didn't let it show. I kept pushing forward, forward, levering myself up. Tottered a little, shifted my weight. Now it was the knees that were screaming. The hips, the pelvis. I hadn't been standing for weeks. Lying here in a coma, dreaming I was in Atlantis, dreaming I was on Romany Star.

No. Not dreaming. Ghosting. Truly and literally there. I have seen Romany Star.

I walked to the window and switched it to view capacity. "My God," I said in awe. "My God!"

There was a vast rubble-field outside, stretching as far as I could see: broken statuary, sundered pavements, toppled buildings, charred walls. It was an unreal sight, a stage-set of devastation. Here and there a building rose intact out of the ghastliness. Incongruously, unaccountably. It seemed wrong that anything should still be in one piece on this world. The undamaged buildings were out of place in this architecture of destruction. I had not seen anything so frightful in my life.

I turned away from the sight of it, numbed, shaken. "What have they done here?" I asked.

"It was the war of everybody against everybody," said Polarca. "Three different armies at first, Periandros, Sunteil, Naria. And then a second doppelganger of Periandros broke away from the first and made war on him. And after that it was Naria's forces dividing against themselves; and then there was a new army that didn't seem to belong to anyone. After that, no one could make sense out of anything. The fighting was everywhere and everything was destroyed. We survived because they didn't dare aim at the palace of the Rom baro, and we had your banners out, and your light-spike. But even so we took a few bad hits. One whole wing of the building was gutted. We thought we were going to die. But there was no way to leave the Capital. The starport is closed. No ships are moving anywhere."

"Gaje," I muttered. "What can you expect?"

"Somehow you slept through it all. We thought you were never going to wake."

"The fighting is over now?"

"All over," Polarca said. "There's no one left to fight."

"And who ended up as emperor, when all the fighting was over?" There was silence in the room. They looked stunned and dazed, all of them. Polarca, Damiano, Chorian, Valerian and the rest, silent, dazed.

"Well?" I said. "Is that such a difficult question? Who's emperor now? Tell me. Naria, is it, still?"

"No one," said Damiano. "No one?" "There is no emperor.

It made no sense. No emperor? No emperor?

I said, "How can that be, no emperor? There were three!" Damiano said, "Periandros' doppelgangers were destroyed by Periandros' own troops. There was a confrontation, at the headquarters of Periandros, two of the doppelgangers face to face. Everyone could see now that there was no Periatidros, that there were only doppelgangers. So they destroyed them both, and then they hunted down the third one and finished it too."

I nodded slowly. "And Naria? What happened to him? Behind that ring of defenses. His deflector screens, his tanks, his robots. His glass cube."

"Dead," Polarca said. "A plasma bomb, a direct hit on the imperial palace. Thirty seconds of thousand-degree heat. The palace was hardly damaged but everyone inside died instantly. Naria was cooked in his own glass cube."'

"That leaves Sunteil."

"He went to take possession of the palace after Naria's death," Chorian said. "Naria had booby-trapped the throne-platform. Three lasers sliced Sunteil into pieces the moment he took the imperial seat. A hidden scanner, coded for Sunteil and only Sunteil, that would respond to no one else's somatic specifications." He looked away. "I was there when it happened," he said quietly.

"Dead?" I said, not believing it. "The high lords? All three dead? No emperor at all?"

"No emperor at all," Polarca said.

- What will they do? There has to be an emperor!" "Go back to bed, Yakoub."

"No emperor-"

"That's not our problem. Go back to bed. Lie down. Rest," Polarca said.

I glared. "Who do you think you're ordering around?"

Syluise took my hand. "Please, Yakoub. You've been seriously ill. It's just a little while since you regained consciousness. You mustn't put a strain on yourself now. Please. Just rest a little more."

"I was ghosting," I said. "Not ill at all." "Please, Yakoub."

"Do you know where I was? Do you know what I saw?"

"For me," she murmured. "Lie down again. So I won't worry. We can't afford to lose you too, now. No emperor, no king-"

I looked around the room. I felt like shouting, raging, blustering. Was I so fragile? Was I so decrepit? Look at them all! Staring, gaping! They were all like pale phantoms to me. Unreal. This whole place seemed unreal. Romany Star still glowed in my mind. That palace of reeds, that long line of quiet citizens, that king in his vast and solemn dignity-that great red sun, swelling, swelling, growing larger and larger and larger. "Mon ami, I implore you." Julien. "You will be fine tomorrow. But you must not tax yourself overly, you must not place demands on yourself that you are unable to meet. I implore."

"You," I said.

His face colored. "Whoever I may have served in the past, Yakoub, it makes no difference now. Now I serve only you. And I beg you, Yakoub. Rest yourself. The pitiful pretender begs the true king. You need your strength for tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? What, tomorrow?"

He glanced toward the others. I saw Damiano nod, and Polarca. Julien said, "The audience, tomorrow. The peers of the Imperium, the new ones, those who survived the holocaust here. For days they have hovered about the palace, pleading to speak with you the moment you regained consciousness. A matter of the greatest urgency, they say. You are the king and there is no emperor: they need to see you. They need your help. They're totally bewildered."

I stared. "Peers of the Imperium? Greatest urgency? Totally bewildered?"

"Tomorrow may be too soon," Damiano said. Always cautious. "We don't want to overtax you. They've waited this long, let them wait another couple of-"

"No," I said. "Tomorrow may be too late. They need my help. How can I ignore that? Get them here right away, man!"

"Mon vieux, mon ami!" Julien cried. "Not today! Not so soon! You have but hardly awakened. Let it wait."

"Send for them."

Polarca threw up his hands in despair. Damiano, tight-faced, furious, clenched his fists. Syluise clung close, appealing. I saw the stricken face of Chorian, and even some boy standing beside Chorian, one who I had not even noticed before and that I did not know at all, was shaking his head as though to say, No, no, Yakoub, not so soon, not until you're stronger.

I was determined. There had been enough anarchy; if I was a king, and I was a king, then I must take up my task. At once. At once. "Send for them!" I thundered.

But it was the last thundering I did that day. Even as the words escaped my throat, the force of my own outcry undid me. I swayed and grew dizzy and sagged down toward the side of the bed. I think for a moment my soul tried to bolt free of my body. I forced it back. Wondering if this was the final moment of Yakoub, stupidly, prematurely, just when so much remained to complete. No! No! By the holy turds of all the saints and demons, not yet, not yet, not yet!

A bad moment. A foolish moment.

"Easy, there," Valerian whispered, lowering me to the pillow. "You're all right. Easy, you Yakoub! Give him a drink, fast! No, not the water, you idiot! Here. Here. Sip this, Yakoub. There. Another. Julien's finest cognac. Here."

I felt life returning, as the rich fiery brandy hit my gullet. But even so it took me an embarrassingly long while to recover a little poise: thirty seconds, perhaps a minute. Then I smiled. I winked. I belched. I made the good Rom sign that says, Not dead yet, cousins, not yet! But I knew that the peers of the Imperium, whoever they might be and whatever they might need to hear from me, would have to wait. I would have to curb my roaring impatience. I was a little frail today. I needed a little more rest. It had been a busy time for me, and I am not young, I suppose. That is the truth: I am in fact not young.

NOT THE NEXT DAY, NOT THE DAY AFTER THAT PERHAPS it had taken me close to two hundred years, but I had learned a little patience after all. I waited until I had some strength again.

Then I sent for them. And then they came.

I was in the audience-room of the palace that the Gaje had so kindly provided, all those hundreds of years ago, for the use of the Rom baro when he is in residence at the Capital. But I think they had never expected to see that audience-room put to such a use as it was put this day. No, not in a million years would they have anticipated a day such as this.

It was a very formal occasion. I dressed in my finest finery and mounted my throne and sat among the ceremonial objects of my power: my silken scroll of office; my silver scepter that bore the five holy symbols of axe, sun, moon, star, cross; my statuette of the Black Virgin Sara; my wonderwheel; my shadowstick. A grand and primitive display. Here sits the Gypsy king in all his majesty, yes. All hail!

"Send them in," I said.

A demon-figure at the door, bizarrely masked. Red straw beard, bulging green eyes, white horns. Cloak of brilliant stripes, a dozen colors. He pauses, makes a gesture of respect, bows stiffly from the hips. Takes up a position to my left, near the window.

Another. A woman, supple, sinuous. Golden mask, slits for eyes. Firm chin visible below, painted with interwoven blue lines. A gown that glistens like cold fire. The same gesture. Stands beside the first.

What is this masquerade? Who are these demons and witches?

A third. Savage spikes at his collar; giant black antlers rising high above a domed head. Bows. Moves to his place. The room is very silent. Polarca's eyes are bright as beacons. Damiano stares, lips clamped tight. Valerian ghosts nervously in and out of the scene; I see the energies flickering around him.

The fourth peer of the Imperium. Crocodile-head, stubby furry beastlegs. Pitchfork in his hand.

The fifth. Bat-wings, fangs, a torch smouldering in his black longclawed hand.

Monsters and demons. These are the peers of the Imperium?

A fish-woman, scales and breasts. A goat-man, snorting and preening. One with a great bird-beak, and brilliant plumage that glows with a light of its own.

Lion-head. Frog-head.

Nine nightmare monsters arrayed in a semicircle before me. How still they are! What now? Will they leap upon me, will they devour me alive as I sit on my throne?

A signal. Antler-head comes forward. Kneels. Touches my foot. "Majesty," he says. What? What? The voice, rumbling from the depths of the heavy mask, is deep, hoarse, rough.

"Majesty," says lion-head, coming forward. "Majesty," says fish-woman.

One by one. It is a dream. It is some fantastical moment out of space and time. The universe has ended; spirits float freely about. "Majesty."' "Majesty." "Majesty."

Now they are reaching into their costumes and pulling forth small objects which they place before me: a sphere, a rod, a string of interlocking golden balls. Not a masquerade, then, but a game? What am I supposed to do, solve the puzzle of these toys? Should I be wearing a mask of my own?

Why are they calling me Majesty? That is no title of mine. The Rom baro is beyond such pomp. My people call me Yakoub. These lords could well do the same.

Crocodile-head draws from the depths of his garb something that looks like a short sword in its scabbard. Polarca tenses and prepares to leap forward. I wave him back with the smallest motion of a finger. Crocodile-head places the scabbard before me: fine purple velvet, rich, lustrous. Places a furry hand on the head of the weapon within and begins slowly to pull it forth.

It is no weapon.

I know what it is. I have seen it before, many times, in my visits to the Capital. It is the wand of office that the emperor holds when he occupies the throne-platform atop the crystalline stairs.

What is this? What is this?

"Will you pick it up, Majesty?"' asks crocodile-head.

"That wand is nothing of mine."

"It will be yours the moment it touches your hand," he says.

I had thought that after seeing Romany Star I would be beyond all awe; but now I am awed to my roots. What are these crazy GaJe doing, all bedecked in these nightmare costumes and crawling about down by my feet? What strange rite is this, that no Rom has ever seen or even heard about before, this procession of phantasms, this presentation of the wand?

Are they making me emperor? Me? "You have all gone mad," I say. "Majesty-" says crocodile-head. "Majesty-" from antler-head.

"We beg you, Majesty-" It is frog-head, groveling.

"Up, all of you!" I stare in amazement. "On your feet! Take off those hideous masks!"

"Majesty-" "Off with them! Unmask! Unmask at once!" I snatch up their Gaje wand of office and wave it around. "No nightmares in here! Get rid of those masks!"

They turn to one another, making bewildered little gestures with their claws and paws and flippers. Consternation. Uncertainty. Then lion-head lifts his mask, and the face of a man of Vietoris, unknown to me, looks out. Frog-head reveals a Copperfield face, ruddy, windburned. Antler-head has the fair skin and golden hair of a man of Ragnarok. Nine worlds of the Imperium have yielded these nine peers. Without their masks they look absurd in their costumes, caught in mid-mummery, childish, foolish, embarrassed.

"What is this?" I ask, brandishing the wand. "Why have you come here in these outfits? What are you trying to do?"

"The tradition," one whispers. "It is only a little pageantry, Majesty. To lend a heightening touch to the old secret rite-"

"What rite?"

"The naming of the emperor, Majesty." Yes, I was right. Madness.

"Have you all lost your minds? I am Rom! What are you doing, coming to a Rom like this?"

"The throne is empty. The three high lords are dead. The ships remain in the starports. The worlds are helpless," says the Ragnarok man.

"The time has come for the uniting of the peoples," says Copperfield.

"You are the one. There is no one else. This was the will of the Fifteenth, sealed in the moment of his death, revealed to us now in the time of the destruction of the Capital. He chose you. This terrible war has been the consequence of ignoring that choice. Spare us further grief. Surely you will not refuse the will of the Fifteenth?"

The will of the Fifteenth"Majesty!" they cry again. I look across the room. Polarca is laughing or crying, I am not sure which. Damiano is down on his knees, shivering and praying. Chorian looks as though he has been struck from behind by a falling star. Only Julien de Gramont is totally calm: he looks transfigured, ecstatic, as though France itself is being reborn before his eyes.

"Majesty! Majesty!"

I look at the wand in my hand. The will of the Fifteenth? Jesu Cretchuno Sunto Mario! Emperor Yakoub? The same man, king and emperor? What do they think I am, GaJe as well as Rom?

By damn, why not?

The first Rom emperor. And the last. Take the throne, proclaim the harmony of the peoples, rebuild the web that links the worlds. Send forth the starships again. And then, then, the rebirth of Romany Star under my auspices. The return, the resettlement. For this must be the call that we have all awaited: when the GaJe turn to a Rom and say, Bring us together. So will we come together at last. And then we will go home.

"Will you accept?" the GaJe lordlings ask, astounded themselves by what is happening. "Do you yield to the will of the Fifteenth? The throne of the Imperium is waiting for you, Majesty. Say the word, and we will proclaim it: the Sixteenth has been chosen at last!"

"No," I say, and there is a terrible stunned silence. "No?" they mutter. "No?"

A smile. "No, not the Sixteenth. That's an unlucky number, I think. Let them have been the Sixteenth, all three of them. The Sixteenth and the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth. We accept your homage, and we proclaim ourselves to rule from this moment forward as the Nineteenth of our line, and so be it."

"Long live the Nineteenth Emperor!" cry the peers of the Imperium.

"Long live the Nineteenth!" From Chorian, resonantly, joyously. "Long live the Nineteenth!" From Julien, from Polarca, from Valerian. And then from all of them.

"We are greatly pleased," I say, benevolently waving the wand of office from one side of the room to another.

The royal we. How wonderfully silly that sounds. I love it.

BY THE TIME I HAD BEEN ROBED AND ANOINTED AND driven across the smouldering rubble-fields of the Capital to the imperial palace, which still stood intact despite all the carnage that had taken place in and around it, night was falling. On the horizon the sky-banner of a new emperor was aglow in every direction.

Once more I climbed the crystalline steps, huffing, I must confess, and puffing, all the way. No emperor waited at the top to hand me my cup of sweet wine. No loudspeakers boomed out my name as I ascended.

The peers of the Imperium clustered below me as the Nineteenth Emperor held the first procedural session of his reign.

I appointed Polarca and Julien de Gramont as my first two high lords. Polarca, of course. And Julien because a majority of the high lords would have to be Gaje, and he was my Gajo. The other one I would choose from that gaggle of masked monstrosities, as soon as I had had time to learn something about them.

When I was done with that, I issued some decrees having to do with the reconstruction of the Capital-we would do it in a somewhat less gaudy and grandiose way, but there was no need to say anything explicit about that just yet-and the reorganization of the imperial guard in the wake of the civil war. Then, in my capacity as Rom baro, I told Polarca to send word to the Rom star-pilots in every corner of the galaxy that the starships must start going forth again at once. How else would the joyful peoples of the Imperium be able to send their delegates to the Capital to celebrate the coronation of the glorious Nineteenth?

"All right," I said finally. "Enough of this. Help me down these goddamned stairs, you two."

Polarca blinked. "Did I hear you ask for help?"

"Crystalline steps are very goddamned slippery, Polarca. Do you want the Nineteenth to fall and break his ass right in front of the worshipful peers? Here. Take my arm. And you, Julien, you walk in front of me. If the Nineteenth does slip, at least his fall will be broken by the King of France. "

Of course I wasn't all that worried about slipping. But I thought it would reassure them, knowing that I was at least beginning to take a few sensible precautions in deference to my age. You have to humor people, sometimes, or they'll drive you crazy with oversolicitousness.

"Who'd have imagined it?" Polarca murmured, for something like the ten thousandth time that day. "The Nineteenth Emperor descends the throne-platform, and who is he? Who is he? Do you believe you are emperor, Yakoub? Would you have thought such a thing was possible, that the Gaje would come to the Rom baro, that they would lie down in front of him in their masks and robes, that they would hold out the wand to him, that they would say-"

"I knew it all along," I told him grandly. "I saw it in the lines of my palm."

"And me a high lord of the Imperium!" Polarca cried.

"And you knew that all along, too, didn't you? Didn't you, you Polarca?"

Chorian was waiting below. He had that boy with him, the one who had been in my bedroom when I awakened. I wondered who he was. Some young brother of Chorian's, perhaps? No, there wasn't any resemblance. This boy had nothing like Chorian's long legs and slim, rangy build. He was short, deep-chested, fair-skinned; he didn't quite look Rom at all.

"Majesty?" Chorian called. "To you I am Yakoub," I said. "But-but-"

"Yakoub." He nodded. "I have someone here I'd like you to meet." I looked at the boy. "A friend of yours? A relative?" "His name is also Yakoub."

"Not an uncommon name."

"He is the son of your son Shandor," Chorian said. "What?"

"Majesty!" the boy said, and I thought he would cry. I thought I would, also. He dropped down before me and began kissing the hem of my garment in a disgusting way. I had to pluck at his hair to pull him up and away.

"Don't," I said. "Let me look at you, boy."

Not much Rom in him, no. Except in the eyes. Shandor's eyes, bright and fierce. My eyes. I felt a little shiver go running down my back. I drew him close to me and held him, and kissed him in the Rom way.

Chorian said, "He was found on Galgala, in Shandor's camp. They shipped him here just before the starships stopped running, but there was no time to bring him before you until now."

"Yakoub," I said, trying out the name. It is not all that common, that name. It has an ancient heritage, yes. But there are very few of us today. He was smiling and crying at once. Named for me. What, I wondered did that tell me about Shandor? A handsome boy in his way. Fifteerl years old, maybe? Maybe younger. Shandor's son by that GaJe woman of his. A poshrat, a half-breed. Well, no matter. I was starting to feel half Gajo myself, now that I was their emperor. It was time to put aside some of the old prejudices. This boy united both the races in himself. Good. With my own name stuck to him. Good. I wondered how much Shandor there was in him. Shandor's energy and cunning, maybe, but none of Shandor's vileness, eh? One could hope. I smiled. "Come with me, Yakoub. And you, you Polarca. Julien. Chorian. I need some fresh air."

Out under the stars. That burning smell was starting to fade, now: it was days since the fighting had ended, and most of the fires were out. The sky was ablaze with light.

I looked up, searching for Romany Star.

"Can you see it?" I asked. "It should be there, somewhere off to the north, eh?" I narrowed my eyes, squinting, peering. Frowning. As I looked I said very quietly, "I went there, you know. While I was off ghosting. I went all the way back, and shook hands with the king. The last king of Romany Star, and what a great man he was!" They were all staring at me. "You don't believe me? Well, no matter. No matter. I was there. I said I wouldn't let myself die until I had been to Romany Star, and I have kept my vow." Odd that I couldn't find it up there, though, after having seen it almost every night of my life. That great red blazing thing. Where was it? More trouble with my eyes, maybe? "Do you see it?" I said. "Polarca? Chorian?"

They didn't seem to see it either. We stood there in the darkness, peering, frowning, squinting. I could hear the song of Mulesko Chirilko, rich and strange in the night.

"I was there on the last day," I told them. "As the swelling of the sun began. And I said to the king that we would be back, that I would lead the return. That much I promised him. As I have promised myself all my life. As I promised you."

Polarca said, "Could we be looking in the wrong place, Yakoub?" "It's usually-right-there," I said. "Ah, holy saints and demons!" "What do you see?" Chorian asked.

"There," I said. "I see it now. Not red any more. There it is, that bright star there. The blue one, do you see? That's Romany Star. Changing. Swelling. The third swelling of the sun has started, do you see?"

"I don't see the one you mean," said Chorian.

"There. There." I pointed, and he stared, and Polarca stared. And my grandson stared. They didn't seem to see. I tried to guide them, describing the pattern of the constellations all around. It was unmistakable now. The great blue star shining where the red one had been. The third swelling was under way at last; and after that it would be safe for us to go back. Then I would send my people in ships, hundreds of ships, thousands of ships. How long would that be, before it was safe? Ten years? A hundred? Well, I would find out. I would ask the imperial astronomers tomorrow.

What if they said five hundred years? Well, no matter. No matter. Someone else would lead the return, I suppose. Chorian? I would like that, if it were Chorian. Or this young Yakoub, maybe. Or maybe his grandson. That would be all right. I had kept my vow. I had lived long enough to see Romany Star with my own eyes. And to set us upon the path that would take us home.

And now? There is work to do, for the king, for the emperor. Great tasks await, and I will do them, for I am the man for the tasks. I knew that all along. And now you know that too, for I have told you my story, which now is finished, though my work is not. What is still to come, we will see. This is my story, and I have told it. Chapite! A Romany word, which storytellers use, when they have come to the end of their tale. Chapite! It is true! It is all true!