|
|
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
waist cold, so cold. His hands reach to her again. She feels feather touches
on her face cold, cold, so cold.
"Come to me, daughter, come to me, my child." The stone closes around his
neck; the yearning in his eyes touches the long-denied yearning frozen
deep within her oh cold, so cold.
"Let me be, father, let me be, teacher," she whispers and sees before the
stone closes over his head the agony in his eyes, an agony without measure as
the pain in her is without measure cold, so terribly cold.
Moonlight slanted silver through the window, painting an oblong of broken
silver on Serroi's body. She turned and turned in her troubled sleep, side and
back and stomach, caught in dreams she could neither banish nor wake from.
Her Noris reclines on black velvet before a crackling fire. She is a small
girl, comfortable and happy beside his divan, half-sitting, half-lying
on piled-up pillows, silken pillows glowing silver, crimson, amber,
azure, vio-let, emerald, midnight blue. His hand drops, strokes her hair,
begins pulling soft curls through his fingers. The fire is no warmer than the
quiet happiness between them.
"No!" Serroi jerked up from her sweat-sodden pillow, leaped from her bed and
reached the door before she woke sufficiently to remember she was home, home
and safe, safe in the Valley where Ser Noris could not come. Once, long ago,
he'd tried using her as a key to unlock the Biserica de-fenses for him. She
pressed her face against the door's
pol-ished wood, squeezing back tears she refused to shed.
Now I'm no key, I'm a lever and you're using me to force an opening for you.
It won't work, won't, can't work. I would have done anything for you once, but
not now.
"Not now," she whispered.
Still trembling, she tumbled back to the bed and sat wea-rily on its edge,
dropping her head into her hands. "Maiden bless, I'm tired. Let me sleep, will
you? Please. Please, let me be." Her eyes burned. She rubbed them then
lifted her head to gaze out the window toward the shadowy granite cliff
across the valley. "You're up there now, aren't you?
Wanting all this not for what it is, wanting it because you can't have it,
wanting it though it would turn to dust and ashes at your touch." She shivered
in spite of the night's warmth at the thought of that touch, feeling a painful
mixture of revulsion and desire. Her lips curved tiredly up then fell to a
bitter line. "If only you knew, my Noris, you betray yourself with every
Page 13
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
dream you send to torment me. You show your own weakness, not mine ...
ah, Maiden bless, that's a lie. My weakness too, too much mine." She turned
her eyes from the cliff but found no ease for her spirit, not when the only
other thing she had to look at was the empty bed across the cell. Even in the
cloud-mottled moonlight she could see the preci-sion of the blanket folds, the
crispness of the white pillow. Tayyan had never in her life left a bed like
that, not without a lump here, a sag there, a wrinkle or two that
her greatest effort couldn't eliminate. A
knocking at the door broke her from her brooding. She lifted her legs onto her
bed, crossed her ankles and tugged her sleeping smock over her knees. "Come."
Yael-mri pulled the door open and stood in the dark rec-tangle, the candle she
held stiffly before her painting inky shadow into the hollows and lines of her
strong face. "The Silent Ones sent to tell me you were dreaming again."
Serroi's hand trembled on her knee. "Yes."
The flame wavered as Yael-mri sighed, licked at a raised edge sending a liquid
slide down one side of the candle.
The smell of hot wax was suddenly strong in the small room. Ab-sently
Yael-mri straightened her arm, holding the candle far-ther from her. "The
Shawar are troubled by these sendings. Their meditations are disturbed,
and what's worse, several makings have collapsed."
Serroi licked dry lips. When she met Yael-mri's compas-sionate gaze, she
stopped breathing, then tried to smile, but the twisting of her mouth felt
more like a grimace so she let the smile die. "I'll have to leave the Valley."
"I'm afraid so. Come to the prieti-varou when the bell sounds treilea. We'll
talk. I have some suggestions I want to make about your destination once you
set out."
"I hear." Serroi drew shaking fingers across her eyespot, trying to counter
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
|
|
| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
|
|
