The celebrations went on for a long time, with people dancing in the streets and feasting on vast quantities of food and drink, freely available in unlimited quantities for the first time in living memory. The Tharians joined in with enthusiasm, delighted at being able to walk freely about the city at last without having to conceal their identities, and the Konnen soldiers, now out of uniform and dressed in ordinary, civilian clothes, mingled freely with the crowds, accepted by the common people for the most part, although there were still hard words and resentful glances from many of those who’d lost relatives in the dungeons or women who’d been forced to do time in the Konnen pleasure rooms.

     There was some talk of some of the worst soldiers being put on trial for crimes committed down through the years, but Diana and Clarissa spoke out fiercely against it, even when they had absolute proof that a particular man had committed a particular crime. Father Bryon had horrified Diana with many horror stories of cycles of hatred afflicting isolated, self contained communities, with one group of people oppressing another, the hatred of the second group growing until they rebelled and overthrew the first, reversing their positions to become worse masters than those they'd replaced. The same thing would happen over and over again, he said, the cycle turning and turning, greased and lubricated by generations of human blood. The only cure, Father Bryon had said, was to draw a firm line across the crimes of the past. To forgive and forget everything, no matter how monstrous, and then fix one's gaze firmly forward, on the future.

     Making the common people of Kronosia accept this bitter spoonful of medicine would be unbelievable difficult, though, particularly in cases where people had been tortured to death by the bestial and merciless dungeon guards, but as luck would have it most of the guards had either been murdered by vengeful relatives in the first hour of the revolution or had escaped into the caverns. Of course there would be the odd occasion when a man would meet the guard who’d murdered a loved one, or a woman met a soldier she’d ‘encountered’ in the pleasure rooms, but these occasions turned out to be thankfully rare. If not for that merciful fact, Diana doubted that it would have been possible to maintain order in the moon city.

     Eventually, though, the celebrations came to an end and the crowds began to disperse back to their own homes. There was no rest for Tomsk, Clarissa and the Tharians, though. Soon, people would begin to wonder who was now in charge of the moon city, and some of the more ambitious would begin putting themselves forward as prospective leaders. If they weren’t careful, they could have another civil war breaking out between the supporters of rival candidates, so they had to think of a way of persuading the entire population of the city to accept Tomsk as their leader, he being the only person old enough, experienced enough and close enough to the centre of the revolution to be a viable candidate.

     The Tharians promised to support him in his claim, on the condition that he make the Lenses of Farseeing freely available to the Beltharans, as soon as they’d returned home and told them about them. Tomsk agreed gladly, but was privately wondering whether he could find the way to turn the job over to someone else. The task ahead of him was terrifying in its scope and magnitude. He would have to find a way to bring some kind of order to the city, re-creating all the various systems, structures and organisations that were part of a normal city’s life, with priority going to some kind of law enforcement system.

     They couldn’t employ any former guards or soldiers for this, that really would have had the citizens up in arms, so they would have to train ordinary, common people. People who’d lived all their lives as servants, tailors or carpenters would have to be policemen, judges and magistrates, to settle disputes and agree on the punishments for crimes. Kronosia, currently, was just a great crowd of people who just happened to be living together, and if they didn’t knock together some kind of government pretty quick, the strong and ambitious would take over, creating a regime so cruel that people would look back on the old days with longing and nostalgia. That had to be avoided at all costs.

     “The Beltharans will be able to help you there,” said Shaun optimistically. “Once there’s regular contact between you and them, they’ll give you all the support you need. They’ll want to use the observatory to spy on the Shadowarmies and they’ll want to make sure there’s a friendly local population to look after them.”

     “We’ll look after each other,” promised Tomsk, feeling reassured. “Things’ll be all right now. I’ve got a good feeling about it. Kronosia has a bright future.” They all laughed, and the old man went over to talk to his sons.

     “What about the moon trogs?” asked Diana, a frown on her face.

     “They’ll be okay now,” promised Thomas. “It’s going to be a long, long time before this city’s in any condition to think about anything going on outside the gravity sphere, and when they eventually do get themselves organised they’ll be looking down to Tharia, not the Kronosian interior. I reckon the moon trogs’ll just be forgotten about, which should suit them just fine.”

     “But will they?” worried the cleric. “The one thing they feared more than anything else was that the teleportation cubicle would be re-opened and contact restored with Tharia, and now that’s just what’s happening. Can we be absolutely certain that Kronos won’t be overrun by refugees fleeing the war?”

     “Or that the Beltharans won’t decide to re-open the mines?” added Lirenna. “With the war going the way it is, they’ll be wanting all the iron they can lay their hands on, and the moon trogs are the ideal people to mine it for them. What if the Emperor makes them an offer they can’t refuse?”

     “Look, we’ve done all we can!” replied Shaun in annoyance. “We’ve saved them from being invaded by the Konnens, risking our own lives in the process, and now our duty is to go back and tell the High Command about the observatory. The moon trogs are just going to have to look after themselves.”

     “I just can’t help being afraid that the moon trogs are in for a crisis that we’ve brought upon them,” said Diana guiltily. “They wouldn’t be in this position if it hadn’t been for us.”

     “It would have happened sooner or later, with or without us,” pointed out Thomas. “There wouldn’t be anyone on Kronos at all if some wizard hadn’t had the bright idea of teleporting up here a few thousand years ago, and it was only a matter of time before another wizard had the same idea. Eventually, someone would have come up here and discovered them. At least this way we have the observatory to help us fight the Shads.” The cleric nodded unhappily.

     “Look,” said Jerry, trying to cheer her up. “Now that the way back to Tharia is open, the whole population of Kronosia may want to go back. The whole moon may be left to the moon trogs.”

     “Do you really think that’s likely?” asked Diana doubtfully.

     Jerry shrugged. “It’s possible,” he said. “I mean, who’d want to live in a place like this if they had the chance to live on the surface of Tharia? Blue sky, warm suns shining on you. Grass under your feet and the wind blowing your hat off. No contest, I’d say.”

     The others nodded in agreement, particularly Lirenna. None of them knew what the gl-hug ambassador had said to General Klima during the first council of war on Pargonn.

☆☆☆

     The Tharians were invited to stay for a few days longer, as special guests of the city, but they politely declined, with Shaun and Matthew being the most anxious to leave. The securing of the observatory for Belthar was an extenuating circumstance that would, they hoped, free them from the threat of execution for desertion, but now that that had been accomplished they had no further excuse. In particular, they weren't looking forward to their next meeting with Resalintas. They knew that he’d only have to look them in the eye and he’d know immediately whether any of the delay had been their fault, so they were desperately eager to be able to tell him that they’d returned the very instant they’d been able to give Belthar a legitimate claim on the lenses.

     The next morning, therefore, the Tharians were gathered next to the teleportation cubicle in the observatory with Clarissa, Tomsk, his sons and Andricus to see them off. They’d had to cross the park cavern in shifts, since they hadn’t yet been able to find any of the other Necklaces of Vacuum Breathing, and they had come to the conclusion that Lord Basil must have take them into the caverns with him.

     The Tharians were all dressed in the clothes they’d arrived in, and had been given back all the possessions taken from them by the Konnens. The only differences were that Thomas was now wearing Lirenna's Autumnleaf ring, the demi shae still wearing Lord Basil's Ring of ESP, and that Matthew had a different sword. He still insisted it was magical, although the wizards doubted it. One day they’d cast a reveal spell on it to find out for certain.

     They were all wearing the suits of glass ceramic armour given them by the moon trogs, Shaun and Matthew wearing theirs under their uniforms, and the wizards in particular enjoyed the feeling of safety they gave them. Whether they'd be allowed to keep them they didn't know. They weren't part of proper Beltharan uniform so Shaun and Matthew would probably have to give theirs up for testing, to assess their value in battle, but Diana and the wizards, who were allowed to wear whatever they liked, were hopeful that they'd be allowed to hold onto theirs. Eventually, if the Beltharans could establish trade relations with the moon trogs, all members of the armed forces might have their own suit of glass ceramic armour, and the moon trogs would be rich beyond imagination.

     “I do hope you’ll come back one day,” said Clarissa, gazing adoringly into Diana’s eyes. “How are we going to manage without you?”

     “You’ll find a way,” replied Diana, smiling fondly back at her. “Caroli will guide you. Trust in Her and you’ll be all right.” She took off her silver caroli flower and hung it around the young girl’s neck, lifting her silky, golden hair out from under the chain. “Here, this’ll help you. It acts as a focus for your faith, enabling you to do things you never dreamed of.”

     “But you...” began Clarissa.

     Diana shushed her. “I’ll get another one back on Tharia, but you’d be hard pressed to find one up here.”

     The two woman then hugged each other, and the tears flowed down their faces while the others discretely averted their eyes. Despite everything they’d been through together (or perhaps because of it), they still found such open displays of emotion rather embarrassing and unsettling.

     “Take care of yourselves,” said Tomsk, holding out his hand, “and make sure you come back one day. I want you to see what we make of this place once we’ve had a chance to get it straightened out. We’ll make you proud of us.”

     “We already are,” replied Lirenna, her eyes shining. “And you just try to keep us away!”

     They all knew it was very unlikely they would ever return, though. They’d made the same promise to return to Darmakarak one day, the abandoned trog village re-inhabited when a new seam of iron had been found nearby. In all the time that had passed since then, though, they’d never had the chance to keep that promise, and now they doubted that they ever would.

     Everyone then shook hands with everyone else and the men hugged the women, and then the Tharians stepped reluctantly into the teleportation cubicle. “Good luck,” said Clarissa, wiping her tears away, “and may the Gods go with you.”

     The Tharians waved back at them one last time and then closed the door.

     “Back to Tharia at last,” said Jerry as they turned to the other door. “I never thought we’d see it again.”

     “None of us did,” agreed Diana. “Not even me. I should have had faith that the Gods would find a way to guide us back.”

     “The yellow sun,” said Lirenna, smiling in anticipation. “The wind. The sea. It seems like years since we last felt the warmth of the yellow sun on our faces.” Thomas smiled back at her and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

     “Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched,” said Shaun, however, a mischievous smile on his face. “It'll be a long journey back to Ilandia. Remember the time it took us to get to the Shrine of the Sceptre of Samnos, and all the adventures we had along the way. That's the kind of journey we've got ahead of us. The war might be over by the time we get there.”

     “Best make a start as soon as possible then,” said Thomas, eager and impatient. He took hold of the doorhandle, turned it and pushed.

     The door wouldn’t open.

     The others saw the frown on the wizard’s face, and the cold fear they thought they’d escaped from began to settle back on their hearts. “What is it?” asked Lirenna, a tremor in her voice.

     “Nothing,” replied the wizard, trying his best to be reassuring. “Door’s just stuck, that’s all.” He pushed harder.

     The soldiers moved to join him, and the three of them pushed together. The door refused to budge, though, and soon they were forced to admit that it wasn’t going to. “But it opened before!” wailed Matthew in frustration. “We went through to Tharia! Tell them, Shaun!”

     “Are you sure you closed the door properly behind you when you came back?” asked Thomas desperately, but he knew, even as he said it, that it was a stupid question. If the door hadn’t been closed properly, they wouldn’t have been teleported back to the tiny moon.

     “Is there something we’re not doing right?” asked Diana, her eyes begging them to find the problem straight away.

     “There’s nothing to do wrong,” replied Jerry. “You close one door, you open the other. So long as the door in Grand Central is closed...”

     “But how could it be open?” demanded Lirenna, almost tearfully. “You closed the door when you came back, and if nobody’s been back since...”

     “Lord Basil!” exclaimed Thomas in fury. “He didn’t flee into the caverns. How could he have? The renegades would have torn him to pieces the moment they saw him. No, he came here! He found out the door was open, he came here, he went back to Tharia and he left the stinking door open behind him to make sure no-one could follow him.”

     For several moments no-one dared to speak. The sheer ruthlessness, the sheer inhumanity of someone who could deliberately maroon five thousand people on the smallest moon just couldn’t be put into words. Not without screaming and blasphemous profanity, anyway. Finally, it was Shaun who spoke first, re-opening the first door, beyond which Tomsk and Clarissa looked around in surprise.

     “Well,” he said with a fatalistic shrug of his shoulders. “Looks like we’re just going to have to get used to Kronosia.”