L Frank Baum Oz 08 Tik Tok of Oz
Cabot Meg PamiÄtnik KsiÄĹźniczki 08 KsiÄĹźniczka w rozpaczy
Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 08] Fliers of Antares (pdf)
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James Axler Outlander 08 Hellbound Fury
R
garth_nix_ _cykl_stare_królestwo_03_ _abhorsen
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H Beam Piper Fuzzy 02 Fuzzy Sapiens v2.0 (lit)
Fred Saberhagen Dracula 09 A Sharpness on the Neck
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the ancient deadly skills were lost. Time to heal.
Aleytys shifted on the rock. She probed for Harskari but the sorceress had
retreated somewhere deep within the diadem and was answering no calls. It felt
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very strange to see the old one so uncertain about her wants and needs, so
moody, so withdrawn, radiating an itch that reinforced the painful
uncertainties already troubling Aleytys. She gazed into the water, floating as
if she hung half-in, half-out of her body.
I don t know, I don t know, why struggle anymore? I don t have to like my
mother, I just have to find her. I certainly despised my father. She watched
silver lines curl and slide away across the black water. My people. I wonder.
Vryhh Kell called me mud. Half-breed. Hate in his voice. What does it matter
anyway? No. It does matter. My body thinks so anyway. Body? Madar knows, I
certainly don t. Kell. Ancestor of some sort. Great how many
greats? grandfather. He d more than hinted he d been her mother s lover, Kell
whom she d fought and defeated on Sunguralingu, then cured of the disease that
was withering him, Kell who d gone from Sunguralingu to destroy her son, who
had somehow driven her son from his home and into the arms of Stavver, the
thief who had brought her the curse of the diadem. She stared into the water
and saw again Stavver s face in the viewscreen, pity in his milky blue
eyes pity, somehow, a greater insult than hate or indifference ever could
be as he d told her that her son refused to talk with her, refused even to let
her look at him. She felt again the pain of that moment and shied away from
considering it. Wriggling uneasily on the stone, she stared up through the
fringe of stiff leaves at the spray of stars. Wolff s sun wasn t visible from
here; she wouldn t have been able to find it in that blaze anyway. Wolff. She
rubbed at her nose.
The timing of Swartheld s return couldn t have been worse the day before Grey
returned from his Hunt, weary and troubled, needing her more than ever,
quietly furious, then bitterly vocal about his pain when he found Swartheld
with her. She shivered. Bad. Other dangers, other agonies, even other
quarrels, they all had the virtue of being relatively cut and rapidly cleared
up, one way or another. Here nothing was clear, she didn t know what she
wanted most no, not true, she wanted Grey, she loved him, needed him, needed
the need he had for her; he validated her, gave her direction, restrained her
excesses. The prospect of leaving him was such a pain she didn t want to think
about it. Grey was nearing the end of his Hunt years, wanted to stand for
Council, said Head needed some support for a change. Aleytys gazed into the
water without seeing it any longer, wondering whether she would be an asset or
a liability in this. There was a group, a fairly small group, but a vocal one,
virulently opposed to her presence. Vicious about it. And he wants a child.
Wants to tie me to him. He knows I couldn t leave another baby and keep my
sanity. She slipped her fingers through the water, let a rain of crystal drops
fall back, listening absently to the music this made as she did it over and
over. Her first experience of motherhood had been a disaster, though she
couldn t be sorry her son existed and there had been happy times, times she
didn t dare think much about even now because the loss was still too sore. She
was tempted, she had to admit that, she would like Grey s child, problem was
it would be hers too with all that entailed. I have to see my mother, she
thought. I have to know her so I can know myself better, so I can know more
about what my child might be. Another reason for finishing this, she thought.
Balanced against her growing desire for that child, she was also beginning to
feel a net tightening about her. Sometimes she actually liked that net, it
gave her a feeling of security, of belonging; sometimes she felt so stifled
she wanted to scream.
And there was Swartheld. She twisted her mouth as she remembered her old bear
and Grey facing each other, stiff, polite, hostile. How could she bear to part
with him, so long, so very long a part of her? Who made her lose control of
herself, who, like no other man or woman or child even Grey, jarred her
outside the shell of defenses she d reared about herself. She loved him as
friend, father, lover, her other self, a feeling natural to her as breathing.
She had to work hard at her relationship with Grey. With Swartheld there were
no points to make, no confusion, no awkward maneuvering. I want both. I want
Grey and Swartheld both She closed her eyes a moment, passed her hand across
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her mouth. We ll work it out, she thought a little desperately, trying to prop
up a feeble hope it might be so.
But that hope soon washed away, drowned by too many other anxieties. Vryhh.
Half-breed Vryhh. She gazed at the water, remembering the night before she
left to come here. Remembering waking, slipping from the bed and standing
beside Grey who was sunk deep into a sleep that nothing could breach, his face
still showing some of the weariness and the bitterness of the day. She watched
him a moment, sadness and tenderness so mixed in her she didn t know where one
stopped and the other began.
Abruptly she turned away and padded to the wall mirror, touched on a hooded
light and began examining her face and body. No scars. That was the first
thing. All the beatings and burnings and wounds and mischances that had
happened to her hide there was no sign of any of that, all the marks vanished
into the quicksand of time and the self-healing of that hide. Not even stretch
marks. She smoothed her hand up over her stomach and felt like weeping, no
sign at all she d ever borne a child; this seemed somehow to wipe her son out
of existence, at least for her. She tried laughing at her foolishness, but the
sadness remained.
She leaned closer to the mirror, pulled at the skin around her eyes, drew her
fingertips down her cheek past the corner of her mouth, rubbed at the firm
flesh beneath her chin. The skin was soft and fresh and unlined as it had been
the day she d run from the vadi Raqsidan. She stepped back and gazed at
herself. I look older, she thought. No lines, but there s an assurance I
didn t have a dozen years ago. There was a knowledge of life that altered her
expression, the way she stood and moved, a knowledge of pain and grief, a
knowledge that one survives and goes on, no matter what the pain. She turned
slowly, swiveling her head to watch herself. Longlife? Shortlife? I can t
tell.
She shook her head, touched off the light and padded back to the bed. Grey was
still sleeping heavily, muttering now, the words unintelligible. Dreaming, she
thought. I wonder what. Not pleasant, whatever it is. She sighed and turned [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
