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I grinned and turned away. The dharen's body secerned near normal, save for
his lack of movement. In moments only, that stiffness was gone from his limbs.
A strange place to do battle Gherein had chosen, neither here nor there, half
in one world and half in another.
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Khys ran a hand over his forehead. Behind him, the window showed dusk.
"Gherein brought the accounting to me. Witnesses have seen it. Get out of
here." He pointed to the arrar. Gherein's witness. "Do what needs to be done.
Tell them not to seek me. None are to disturb my seclusion."
The arrar backed to the doors, his eyes upon the mat. He fumbled behind him
for'the bronze handle. When he had managed his exit, I locked the doors.
Khys sat upon the alcove ledge, looking out over the Lake of Horns. The sun
had set while they were about their testing. I was glad I had been prompt.
I crossed the keep and filled two bowls of kifra, brought them to him. He
received the bowl from me, absently. I stepped carefully through the morass of
loose cushions, taking a seat upon the ledge s
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Janet E. Morris opposite end. He seemed a man once more. And in truth he was
no god. I had seen gods fight, and such was not their custom. But it had been
Gherein, surely, who had chosen the weapons and place of battle. Khys would
have given him that choice, as Raet had given it to me. I sipped my kifra",
taking rein upon my mind. His eyes ranged the lake's far shore. If he had
heard my importunate thoughts, he gave no sign. I felt sorrow for him, that he
had killed his own offspring.
"It was long coming. I tried three times to dissuade him. Upon the next
occasion, I could avoid my duty no longer. I did what the time demanded. If
not over you and our son, then over the number of clouds in the sky would we
have come to contest." His voice was quieter than I liked. I did not know what
to say. He had commanded my presence at his son's self-sought execution. I
raised my bowl, not sipping. Over its rim I gazed at him. There was in him no
grief, but a kind of weariness. That I caught taste of it bespoke its
strength.
Letting the liquid lap against my closed lips, I searched some reply.
"Carth," said Khys as the knock came, without turning his head. He had the
look of a man steeling for battle rather than meditating afterward. I went and
admitted Carth.
"Dharen," he said, halfway to his master. "You know, surely." His whole
bearing was distressed.
Khys closed his eyes. His lashes lay almost atop his cheeks, copper in the
light from the thirteen entrapped stars. "Tell me, Carth, that it may go as I
have envisioned it." He did not open his eyes. I saw the whiteness of his
knuckles, tight fists clenched in his lap.
"The death of Gherein blanketed the Lake of Horns. It did not immediately
identify itself as his. A number are injured. A greater number are
WIND FROM THE ABYSS
229
profoundly disturbed, frightened. The council convenes."
"Witnesses have heard it," said Khys with a bare smile. "You are now first
councilman. Appoint your own replacement. I will speak with you tommorrow,
mid-meal. At that time, you may, if you wish, seek corroboration from the
off-worlder M'tras as to Gherein's complicity in these affairs."
"There is no need, dharen," Carth demurred.
Khys shrugged, his gaze still off over the lakeside. "Have a meal sent to us.
This night I will give audience to my off-world guests. I want no
interruptions. I will see no one, you included, before mid-meal next." And
then he did turn, his majesty flaring from him like sun's spume. "When you
know what you must come to know, attend me. You will soon have a thing to say
worthy of my attention. Until then, I will not hear you. I bid you go and
await the message you must transmit when next we meet. Leave me now," he
commanded. "Carth! I bid you look well about you, for what you have not seen!"
Khys turned back to the Lake of Horns. The audience was over. I, too, turned
from Carth, that I might keep at least an ith between us.
But I could not turn from the specter that hovered like a flame's afterglow
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before my eyes. Gherein had sent his respects to my father, Estrazi. What I
had glimpsed of owkahen told me I might soon deliver them. Convey to your
father my awe, Gherein had bade me, that he could put into the time such a
force. Insightful was Gherein, I realized, as my stance in the time came
clearer.
"That, in truth, he was," said Khys calmly. "Though enfleshed no more, his
influence extends out into owkahen. We will feel his will, both you and I,
some little while longer."
I thought of Chayin, in the holding keep, and
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Janet E. Morris
Sereth in his dank cell. I did not conceal my feelings.
"And you, who bring crux wherever you go, how dare you presume to judge my
actions? I had thought to avoid much of what has come to be. And all of what
owkahen yields up next."Yet, it rises. A man can only claim so much of the
time. When one brings in a number of convergent 'hosts, in the heavy crux,
where one mind has ceased, another may have started. There is, in truimph, a
most vulnerable moment. How vulnerable'one can come to be, I am ever learning. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]