"What?" said Azhure politely, her eyes still on DragonStar and Faraday.

"It is that which existed beyond the Gate!" the GateKeeper said.

DragonStar, now within two paces of them, smiled and nodded. "In a manner of speaking, yes. But this Garden is far more than an 'AfterLife'. It is a 'BeforeLife' as well. It is a beginning and an end within itself. It is a well, a reservoir, of life."

Azhure disentangled herself from Axis' grasp, and slid down from Pretty Brown Sal.

There was something ... someone ... walking through the flowers towards her.

She gave a great sob — would she never stop crying? — and leaned forward to embrace Caelum and River Star, and Zenith just behind them.

And then there were the thousands, the millions, walking out through the flowers from the oblivion of death — Rivkah, Belial, MorningStar, a hundred neighbours and friends, ten thousand names and memories, faces and voices drifting out of the forgetfulness of death, but reaching out with living arms. But among them all, there was no StarDrifter.

"Why?" said Azhure, distraught. "Why?"

Rivkah, Magariz beside her, had her arms about Azhure, comforting her as she had done so often when Azhure had been so lost and lonely and friendless within Smyrton.

DragonStar shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I do not know."

The GateKeeper, strangely soft and pretty in this place, said: "/ know. He did not pass through the Gate, nor even through the Butler's gate."

"But I saw StarDrifter's wings!" said Axis. "He was dead! He must have been!"

"Nevertheless," said the GateKeeper, her eyes resuming a hint of their former steeliness, "he did not pass through either Gate."

And to one side the Butler, polishing a tableful of silver, nodded his agreement.

"Then where is my father?" Axis shouted.

Leagh walked up with her Child in her arms.

Beyond us, said the Girl. If he is not here, then he is somewhere back there.

"Back 'there'?" DragonStar said.

The wasteland of Tencendor only was consumed, said the Child. The other lands bordering it still exist. StarDrifter, perhaps as a result of some magic, must still be there. He was not in the wasteland when it was consumed.

"Then we must go after him!" Azhure said.

No.

"No?"

No. You may not pass from the Garden and return. I would have you here with me.

StarDrifter, somewhere in the lands bordering Tencendor? thought Axis. How? How? What magic could have transported him? And where?

"What exactly does remain of Tencendor?" he asked the Child.

Nothing. Not in the flesh. The land was consumed by earthquake and waves whenDragonStar struck the fatal blow to Qeteb. To those who lived outside the borders of Tencendor,there is nothing left of that land. Only waves.

Axis, as Azhure, opened his mouth to say something more, but the Child forestalled him. He is gone.

Not here. Grieve, if you must, but know also that his time had not yet been completed.

"And what," said Zared, walking up to Leagh's shoulder, and looking down in perplexion at his Child's face, "do we do now?"

The Child laughed, and thrust her tiny fists into the air. You populate the Garden in peace and contentedness!

Epilogue

The Corolean Emperor leaned forward on his throne, one hand absently laying to one side the heavy folds of his purple and gold silk mantle.

"What do you mean, Tencendor is 'gone'?"

"Highest One," the Admiral said from his position of laying face down on the floor, arms spread out to either side of him. His voice was very slightly muffled. "We spent weeks sailing over the entire ocean.

The continent is gone. Sunk beneath the waves. Even the barren land bridge connecting our continents has gone. Waves. Only waves are left."

"Nothing is left? Not a single piece of flotsam? Not one puffy corpse?"

"Nothing, Highest One."

"What happened?"

The Admiral took his time answering, not knowing quite what to make of the hundreds of reports he had had from, not only the crews of Corolean fishing vessels in the area but also from Escatorian cargo ships sailing for Tencendor, as well as the odd pirate, who relinquished their information only grudgingly, and under the threat of having their genitals skewered by hot pokers.

"Highest One," the Admiral eventually said. "From what I can gather, the land suffered a cataclysm so complete we can barely comprehend it. The entire continent of Tencendor has sunk beneath the waves. Even the barren land bridge connecting our continents has gone. Waves. Only waves are left."

The Admiral paused again, wondering whether to relate the other piece of information that had persistently come to his ears.

"Tell me!" the Emperor snapped.

"It is said," the Admiral said very slowly, "that Tencendor was so riddled with sin, corruption and vileness that the gods decided absolute destruction was better than redemption."

The Emperor stared, then sat back in his throne, his chubby, sweating face smiling beatifically.

"I always knew they were a bad lot," he said.

At the very back of the crowd in the public throne chamber, a fair-haired man with extraordinarily compelling blue eyes grinned sardonically. After a moment he turned away, wincing as some unseen injury caught at his back, and he faded into the crowd.

The pain of not finding StarDrifter faded. His time had not been right, and he had passed elsewhere, not into the Garden.

So be it.

Axis and Azhure, as every other person who had passed through death — whether during the final moments of Tencendor, or ten thousand years beforehand — accepted the joy and peacefulness of the Garden.

They were contented, as were the entire populations of peoples and creatures who had entered the Garden.