 |
 |
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] "I do not doubt it," he said; brushing a stray hair from his mark upon my ljecBrtt>"| iwwe long WIND FROM THE ABYSS 197 sought this moment. I regret only that it was birthed in such an unseemly womb." "Was there another way?" I asked, for it would be long before I had steady Page 95 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html stance in the time. "Evidently not," he said slowly. I sensed the self-reproach in him. It edged his voice, tightened his belly, made him still before me. "No one," he added, "is omniscient." "Estrazi himself has said that to me," I told him gently. I wished he would hold me. He did so, taking me abruptly against him, his touch smoothing the quailing of confusion from my muscles. I did not deem it unfitting that he had used me in his nesting. I whispered it to him, my lips against his leathers. His grip upon me tightened. Even in the strength of it, I sensed the tremors. "I am unhurt," I murmured. I pushed back slightly, that I might raise my gaze to his. "I killed one of them," I said. "I know it. I am proud of you." He tucked in his chin, his eyes heavy-lidded. His lips brushed my forehead, my eyelids, then pressed savagely upon mine, his teeth bringing blood to my mouth. "Liuma?" I asked, hesitant, when I could. "Dead." He spat the word as he released me. "That part, I had not foreseen. And from it, other unforeseens came to be. I am late here. I would not have left you so long, helpless before them. I had a different thing in mind." He shrugged, as if it were nothing, but his rage roared over me like the Embrodming breaking on the eastern cliffs, and I knew his hest had been altered by another hand. "I would not see you again at the mercy of such as he." He said it even-voiced, deathly low, inclining his head, to the flesh-locked M'tras, motionless in the gray chair. Within Khys, I sensed his reticence, his unwillingness to believe what he saw within me, in the face of what was, to him, his own glaring error. I reached out tentatively to soothe 198 Janet E. Morris his self-condemnation. His lashes met momentarily. His shield, impregnable, snapped tight. I stepped back. "Can there be any doubts of my feelings?" I wondered aloud, amazed, hurt. "You have, how often, taken the truth from my mind? Take it nowf Khys." I saw him, with an effort, compose himself. "I have released you, have I not, from your restraint? I have done so not to commune with your mind, which in any case is open to me, nor to see you as equal, which you will never be, but that your welfare be less a burden upon me. I can use your strengths in what lies before us. I do not need them, but I can use them." "You have them. As always have you had that which you desired from me." His nostrils flared. He inclined his head, his majesty a wrap pulled close. "Keep in mind," he advised, "that this freedom I give you is highly conditional. If you prove unready, I will return you to your former state." He brushed'by me toward M'tras, unmoving at the table. Upon the dharen's cloak, emblazoned on its back, glittered the Shaper's seal. His copper hands found the ijiyr. M'tras, unable to do more, closed his eyes. Khys turned the case, opened it. His countenance was severe as he lifted the instrument from its bed. And he played upon it, calling forth from the strings such sounds of wrath and magnificence that my blood halted, ice-bound, in my veins. I heard the scrabble of M'tras's mind, near madness, as Khys replaced the ijiyr in its case. I had not realized that the instrument meant so much to him. Slowly I made my way to join the dharen, feet slippery on the metal plating, struggling with my own emotions. Did he, I wondered, know of the threat to the hides? And I answered myself that he must. WIND FROM THE ABYSS 199 Nor was I wrong to keep silent, lest I belittle myself with the inadequacy of my conception. Khys spoke a musical sounding. I guessed it some greeting in M'tras tongue. The tone of his skin near-matched the burnished metal. Easy, relaxed, was Khys in his dark leathers before the M'ksakkan, as if we hurtled not in some wounded thing's stomach through the void. And while I thought it, the dharen Page 96 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html leaned upon the table, both hands clenching its edge. Not understanding, I went to him, touched his arm, my mind sending support to the best of my weakened ability. But it was no indisposition upon Khys then, no sudden-revealed infirmity. Seeking, I saw a shore, cold and forbidding, and a strangely formed rock, through which the wind keened. And then a sun spewing gold-red tongues blinded me. Singed and blinking, I retreated, retrieving my hand from Khys's arm. That one looked at me. His eyes had carried away the solar flame. It burned in him for a moment, undamped. Then he pushed himself back from the table's edge. "I am going to free your tongue, Trasyi Quenni-saleslor Stryl Yri Yrlvahl. You will speak only at my bidding." I saw his lids' barely perceptible flicker, as he altered his flesh-lock upon the mechanic. M'tras kept silent. His skin was very gray as he sat there, unmoving, his hands in his lap, his mouth at last his to close. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |