[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She took another drink and managed to swallow this time without choking.“What’s going to happen to me?” she said.Menduarthis leaned back in his chair, took a slow drink, watching her over the rim of his goblet the entire time.He swallowed and said, “What do you mean?”“What the queen did … what she said …”Menduarthis let the silence build until it was becoming uncomfortable, then he set his almost empty goblet beside his bowl and said, “How much do you remember?”Hweilan shuddered, and her stomach clenched.Suddenly, she didn’t seem that hungry anymore.“I could feel her … inside me.In my mind.”She took another long drink of the wine.The queen had scraped through Hweilan’s most intimate secrets, and she still sat up there in her palace, smug with victory.But still, something had happened, something …“You surprised her,” said Menduarthis, breaking Hweilan’s reverie.He sounded more serious, more solemn, than she had ever heard him, and when she looked up, he was scowling into the depths of his wine.“The last person who surprisedKunin Gatar … well, he’s been through a hellish day, and he might not survive another.”“You mean Lendri,” said Hweilan.She’d seen what the queen had done to Lendri.Or had others do for her.The solemnity in his gaze dropped, and for a moment he looked … not contrite.Something told Hweilan that this one probably wasn’t capable of such an emotion.But perhaps … sad?“Hweilan, I must ask your forgiveness.Perhaps if I had warned you what to expect, things might not have … gone as they did.You must understand, I wasn’t sure of you.Why you were traveling with an outlaw, why despite your rugged clothing you obviously had not lived a hard life in the wilderness, and you being … Other.”“I’m not like that!”Menduarthis didn’t flinch at her shout.Instead, he locked eyes with her and said, “You are.I’m sorry if that is upsetting for you, but it’s the truth.Somewheresome way back, I suspectyou have an ancestor who was … well, let’s say, from beyond.”“You’re mad.”“Mad, bad, glad, sadall boiled into one.That’s me.But it doesn’t change the truth.” He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward.“All your life, you have dreamed, but not like others.Sometimesnot alwaysyou dream true, of things past, things yet to be, and things far away.You can sense the truthand the liein people.And your eyes itch.”Hweilan snorted.“My eyes itch?”“An expression of the uldra.It means you are discontented.Always.No matter how happy your surroundings, how much you are getting everything you want and need, you’re never satisfied.Your eyes are always on the horizon, wondering what might lie beyond.Others might see rain coming to water the grass.You wonder from what distant seas the clouds came.Others wonder at the beauty of sunset.You wonder on what lands it is rising.Others fear the moon and the night.You lie awake, wondering if there is a way to make them fear you.” Menduarthis smiled.“Am I close?”Hweilan took a long, slow sip from her goblet, then looked away.“I’m not like you.”Menduarthis chuckled.“Well, you aren’t nearly as good a liar as I am, that’s for certain.”“You never answered my question.”“I have yet to answer many of your questions, as I recall.Which one do you mean?”“What’s going to happen to me?”“I’m no seer, but if you mean what is Kunin Gatar going to do about you … I don’t know.When she was …” Menduarthis cleared his throat and looked down, obviously finding the subject uncomfortable.“When she was sifting your mind, she found something …”“Something that surprised her, you said.”“Hmm, yes, well … I’m not sure ‘surprise’ is the best word.Truth be told, you scared the frost out of her tightest orifice.” Menduarthis pushed his bowl and goblet aside, leaned forward, and dropped his voice almost to a whisper.“She was sifting your mind, Hweilan, like a miser might sift through an old sack of coins, hoping for gold.Like dwarves dig through dirt, hoping for shiny rocks.And she found something.Something that knocked her on her arse.” His voice dropped further so that she had to strain to hear it.“What was it?”“I don’t know.Why should anything in my mind scare her?”Menduarthis stared into her eyes, and she could sense him searching her for the slightest flinch, the barest sign of an evasion.“Hm,” he said at last.“Well, that is why you aren’t sharing your friend’s fate, I expect.‘Someone else has a claim to her,’ she said.No idea what that means?”Hweilan looked away and searched her memory.“They wanted me for some reason,” she said.“Who?”“On … on the day Highwatch fell, the traitors sent someone after me.A horrid slug named Jatara.I don’t know why.But the other day in the woods, that pale man who came after me”“The Frost Folk?”“Yes.Kadrigul
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Tematy
IndexFred Saberhagen Swords 3 The Third Book Of Swords
L Frank Baum Oz 15 The Royal Book of Oz
Industrial Magic Women of the Otherworld Book 4 Kelley Armstrong
Stephen King Book of the Dead
Chosen Prey Lucas Davenport 1 John Sandford
Jean Ritchie DoÂświadczenia z pogranicza Âśmierci.compressed
Luft Monika System argentyński
R. Murray Thomas Manitou and God, North American Indian Religions and Christian Culture (2007
43 368
Michel Foucault Archaeology Of Knowledge