Epilogue

Two years later…

Dianora loved this garden, so peaceful and pretty. Her bench under the trees was stacked with comfortable pillows and refreshments were close at hand. A child’s piercing laughter sounded and she smiled. Maybe not so peaceful, come to think of it. Her toddler son had been sailing toy boats on the pond and otherwise amusing himself under the close supervision of his nanny and his guards. Garrin took no chances with his wife or his child. But Garrard had been pretty well behaved for the last two hours, while she’d been conducting her seminar and he was entitled to let loose now as the participants left.

“It went well?” the king asked, having arrived as the session ended.

“I think this group is the best yet,” she said with enthusiasm. “So eager to learn and very collaborative.”

It hadn‘t taken her long to realize one woman, no matter how determined or how knowledgeable, couldn’t singlehandedly change the course of an entire civilization immured in its Middle Ages. After a lot of introspection and conversation with Garrin she’d put together a program called the Queen’s Innovators. Each guild and craft hall was required on a rotating basis to select one of their best and brightest journeymen or journeywomen and send the person to the capital of Argorn to attend a one month session. Each person was to come with a problem or challenge they most wanted to solve, which they presented at the start of the program to each other, to her and Garrin. Then Dianora would spend hours researching whatever she could find on her handheld to help address the issues. At the second session the group was broken into teams and each team was assigned to work on one problem, bringing all their disparate skills and knowledge together. The team voted to select their project.

The teams met with Dianora on a weekly basis and she facilitated their discussions, provided the research she’d done, without telling them what to do. She wanted them to think outside their narrow world of guild or craft and to learn to work together across disciplines as teams. She wanted them to forge a network of others like themselves which would endure after the program ended. To that end she also conducted a number of team building exercises and there were social events to allow them to bond with each other and to meet key individuals at court. At the end of the month, each team presented their results, which often included prototypes and she and Garrin provided ongoing funding for the efforts. Every participant was sent home with a framed certificate bearing both her signature and Garrin’s and an enameled pin identifying them as a QI.

The designation was now much sought after and prized and she was seeing a few ripples of positive change, or so she believed.

It was a huge amount of work, especially when she was pregnant and then when Garrard was a baby but Dianora loved the whole project and thrived on the challenges. It reminded her of the senior seminars she’d taught when she was a graduate student and the energy thrown off by these young people was fantastic. She was on her fourth rotation of the program now and highly encouraged at how things were going.

“I have a surprise to show you,” Garrin said to her as their son ran up to him to display a pretty, if muddy, rock he’d found. The king scooped up his boy and tossed him into the air, which elicited full body chortles and demands for more from the child.

Dianora marveled yet again what an excellent father Garrin was. Which was a good thing, since she’d found out she was pregnant again this very morning. She’d share the news later, in private, probably when they were alone in their suite in the evening. She had no doubt he’d be delighted. This pregnancy would be easier too, she was sure. She’d made it through the first one doing a lot of frantic research on her handheld, scaring herself, until she asked for Alsaccia to be brought from the mountain fortress to be her personal physician. Alsaccia was so matter of fact and calm about everything, which helped Dianora manage her anxiety at being pregnant in the Middle Ages without modern medicine at hand. The medkit had useful information and injects for pain when labor hit but couldn’t exactly deliver a baby. Alsaccia brought two experienced midwives with her and the delivery had proceeded normally, with no complications.

Aside from her worrying during pregnancy, she’d had no regrets being in the past. She was happy and fulfilled, with a man who loved her more than life itself and who she adored. Giving up the future with all its high tech and comforts paled in significance compared to the joy in her daily life.

Now she rose from the bench, took Garrin’s hand and walked with him into the palace, the nurse and bodyguards trailing behind. They made their way into a grand hallway on the second floor, where tapestries, art and sculptures were displayed. She had a suspicion what he was planning to show her and couldn’t wait.

“Did you talk to Bakuln today? How’s he doing?” she asked as they strolled.

About six months after Garrin had retaken his throne and the kingdom was stabilized, Bakuln had taken a detachment and sailed off to the Craadil’s continent far across the sea of storms in a flotilla of three ships. He’d been gone nearly a year and of course there was no communication possible. Dianora wished she’d grabbed a set of long distance coms when she’d had the chance in the future but eventually their friend had arrived home with his fleet intact, to report the continent had been a land of the dead. An unknown pestilence had evidently wiped out the entire Craadil race, leaving only their decaying buildings as evidence of their previous existence. It was shocking to hear but also meant the Argorn could stop worrying about an invasion.

Dianora was glad to have Bakuln back, not only because he was a good friend to both of them, but also because Garrin depended on him so heavily.

“He seems all right,” Garrin said now. “The ordeal of his excursion to the other side of the ocean and what he found there has changed him to some extent but being home again is slowly bringing him back to his old self. Thank the gods.”

Midway down the long corridor, standing in a pool of sunlight from a specially designed aperture, were the newest statues, covered with a cloth. The nervous sculptor and his assistants stood waiting and bowed as Dianora and Garrin approached.

“Of course the formal unveiling will be a few weeks from now,” her husband said, “But I know you were impatient to see the end results.” He motioned to the sculptor, who pulled on a golden tassel, removing the sheets in a flurry of white cloth.

Dianora stared at the statue of her husband, the same one her archaeological team was going to find thousands of years from now. She’d insisted he be depicted holding out the puzzle box and looking at the art today she was satisfied all the details had been properly captured. She had no idea how the statue was going to end up where Dr. Soren would unearth it and she didn’t much care. It would exist and help send her on her way to this happy life. “I approve,” she said, smiling at the sculptor and then at her husband. “So handsome.”

Moving over a few feet, she studied the matching statue, of the woman to whom Garrin was offering the puzzle box. It was her of course and while objectively she decided the sculptor had taken a few liberties to enhance her appearance, she wasn’t displeased. Far from it! What woman would be? “I think you have me confused with a goddess,” she said over her shoulder, “But I’ll take it.”

“And the special inscription you insisted on, your majesty, has been placed on the plinth at the back.” The sculptor bustled to show her but she lingered in front of ‘herself’ a moment longer. “Dianora, Beloved of Garrin,” she read, being fluent in written Argorn now. She liked the way her statue gazed up at Garrin, reflecting the love they shared.

Garrin had wanted to have the ring carved onto the statue’s hand but she demurred. “It was in the box,” she said stubbornly. “I found it in the damn box so we have to carve the statues accordingly. No hint of the ring until I find it that morning.” Her actions here might well have changed the future beyond anything she’d actually experienced but a tiny instinctive voice deep inside insisted she needed to maintain these key details.

Now she followed the sculptor around the back, read the inscription and laughed. “Dianora Devlin was here,” it said in Basic, chiseled carefully into the marble. “Someone will get a surprise and a shock when they read this. It’s exactly as I wanted it to be,” she said to the anxious artist. “Thank you.”

Garrard was growing whiny, hungry for his dinner no doubt. She went to Garrin and took the little boy from him. “We’d better get you something to eat right away. Enough of staring at boring old statues, right?”

He was toying with her necklace and was probably going to try to teeth on it since his second molars were coming in.

“I can take him to the nursery, your majesty,” the nanny offered. “His dinner will have been delivered there.”

“Take the evening off,” Dianora said. “His father and I’ll handle dinner and the bath tonight.”

The woman curtseyed and left the area.

“Am I wrong?” she asked her husband.

“An evening of wrestling a squirmy two year old, topped off with reading him a book or two before bedtime sounds like exactly what I need,” Garrin said with a grin.

They always put him to bed in the nursery right next to their own rooms each night but the press of official duties meant one of both of them missed Garrard’s dinner and his bath all too often. Dianora thought that was one of the biggest drawbacks to their roles as monarchs but she did everything she could to ensure time with their son was the highest priority.

Garrin paid his compliments to the sculptor and his assistants and assured them the seneschal would be in touch about the official dedication ceremony and the payment of the final fee plus a bonus. Then he took Dianora’s elbow and they retraced their steps through the corridor toward the stairs to their own suite.

“At least we’re out of the diaper stage,” Garrin said.

“Says the man who used his status as king to avoid the worst of them.” Dianora scoffed, but gently. Garrin had walked the floor with Garrard for hours when the baby couldn’t sleep or was ill. She’d thanked the Lords of Space for the medkit once or twice when the boy suffered a severe earache and a sore throat with high fever. One medinject of antibiotics from the future and Garrard was cheerful and ready for mischief again in the morning, all his symptoms gone.

“I did my share.” Garrin’s amused pride was evident.

“About that, I have news to tell you,” Dianora said casually, deciding now was as good a time as any.

Garrin stopped walking and stared at her. “Go on.”

“In about nine months you’ll be back on diaper duty, your majesty. Oh and the medkit says this time it’s a girl. I can’t wait to watch her wrap you around her little finger.”

He put his free arm around her and they had a group hug as Garrard giggled. “You’ve made me the happiest of men,” he said. “Every day since you first appeared to free me from the dungeon. I’m blessed.”

“We both are,” she said, kissing him. “And we have the ring to thank. It wasn’t cursed after all, although I had my doubts on occasion.”

She’d never use the ring to travel to the future again. It was nothing but extravagant ornamentation now, a family heirloom with a fresh set of fanciful tales attached to it. Garrard would inherit it to give to his beloved and it would carry the memories of the love she and Garrin had shared, as well as the legend of Tir’aray and the Argorn woman he’d given the stone to originally. Dianora hoped her efforts were making a difference rippling through time and saving the Argorn civilization when its crisis point arrived. She didn’t care if that future cancelled out the one she’d lived—time travel was such a vexatious subject, headache inducing. She’d finally decided there were many alternate futures and her original life was one but there was going to be another now where the legacy she and Garrin left would allow the Argorn to survive into the time of the Sectors. Take their place as galactic citizens, no one in that timeline the wiser about what had been their original fate.

As for herself, as they entered the nursery to see Garrard’s dinner waiting as predicted, she loved a good man, she was loved by him, she had a family, she had meaningful work she was passionate about and she couldn’t imagine being any happier.

Indeed, the curse of the alien ring had turned out to be the exact opposite, for her anyway. She wouldn’t change a thing, even if the ring would let her try.

* * *

Thankyou for reading CURSE OF THE ALIEN RING! I hope you enjoyed the adventure (and, of course, I’d love a review if you have time and the inclination to write one. Even a few sentences would be much appreciated. Or a rating! Authors relish reader feedback).