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Chayin motioned Sereth to him. They also conferred. It was this that had
brought us to the lakeside so soon after Khys s reliving. I had little
attention for the moment that day. My flesh was racked with chills, and I
could not more than huddle in this corner or that. So did I attend it, Carth s
assumption of the dharen s chald, a set time after I had run from Sereth and
my guilt. For better or worse, Carth, who had been once crell in the pits of
Nemar, would rule from the Lake of Horns. On Brinar fourth fifth, 25,697, did
a hase-enor, and a telepath, take up Silistra s care.
The silence was long. Neither Sereth and Chayin, nor Carth and Miccah, seemed
anxious to break it.
 Excuse him, lords. Miccah straightened at last. His chins puffed as he
worked his mouth. Confronting their austere authority, his message would not
come forth.
 Excuse him, he sprayed. Tiny bubbles formed where his lips met. His eyes
darted here and there in their bloodshot milky pools.  I beg you. Carth has no
more strength for words. In his last breath, he bade me tell you he will
humbly and to the best of his ability carry out your will. The words,
springing forth all together in a jumble, were nearly unintelligible. Mouth
agape, Miccah waited, hands thrust deep into his hide apron, feet wide and
figure swaying. Still half in shock seemed Miccah, and yet grieving for the
dharen.
Chayin, arms folded over his chest, looked at Sereth meaningfully. Then both
turned to Carth, who lay in his body like a yra of binnirin grains in a
two-stone sack.
 Is that what he said? queried Chayin innocently.
 Yes, affirmed the high chalder.
We can only hope that Carth will keep his proxy s promise. What he does is
done in Sereth s name.
 Se keroth, Se keroth, direel b estet Se keroth, growled the cahndor, as the
girl served me kifra. His eyes measured her as she leaned over to pour. She
had evidently spoken to me. I had not heard. I had been with flame, once
again.
 She is not yet well, said Sereth, half to the innman s girl and half to
Chayin.
 Would you want three chambers, Se ... arrar? I heard her through the sea
pulse, breaking upon the jetties and my eardrums.
 Two, Chayin said,  with access between.
Sereth s shifting, as he dug dippars from his pouch, was more immediate. I
resettled myself against him.
 Re Dellin has been here, and left instructions that he be the first to know
should you happen this way. Under his gaze, she preened herself, patting her
hair with a sturdy wrist.
 When? Sereth was tense-stiff, his quietest.
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 Just this rising, she murmured, deferential,  if it should please you,
arrar.
 And if it should not? he snapped.
Sereth tossed three coins. The third was titrium half-well. The girl smiled,
eyes lowered demurely, Chayin twisted around in his seat as she bent to take
them. She brushed against him. She hesitated, her breast against his shoulder,
her fingers upon the coins.  Should I send him word, then? she asked.
 No, said Sereth.
 Se keroth, indeed, I whispered as the girl withdrew and gave me back view of
the hearth. Others entered then, to dine and chase the salt chill from their
bones.
My fingers found the arrar s chald at my waist, and a certain knife that was
sheathed upon the parrhide belt. In its hilt was a single gol drop. It had
been given to me by Sereth, upon Mount Opir. Or its mate had. He had
commissioned them, both alike, when I had been accounted dead. The gol drops
in their hilts had been gift to us from a golachit we had aided, high in the
gollands of the Sabembe range. Khys had taken them from us. We had, upon
rediscovering them, learned the faithfulness with which the weaponsmith had
followed the Ebvrasea s intention:  Tempered and made the same, so that one
may not be told from the other, Se keroth.
At length, we each took one. There was no telling them apart.
The fired blade must be quenched in ice. We would not reach the eastern shore
much before winter solstice, first first of Orsai.
I sat up, away from Sereth. Chayin looked at me, pensive, expectant.
 There is no proof. Beware use by prophecy in search of fulfillment, I warned
him, knowing that if any could have warded off such forces, that one was no
longer among us. He caught my thought, for he glared at me severely. I shrank
back, upon reflex, from his displeasure. Then straightened. I had made no
secret of my hesitancy to undertake this, or any, journey. They had both
separately informed me that a time of peace and reflection was not in the
sort. I think, rather, it is not in their natures.
The cahndor massaged that old wound, often his prelude to speech. It has long
since ceased to pain him, but the habit remains. He seemed on the verge of
comment when the innman s girl again approached. With her she bore a rolled
document documents, actually two, the larger serving as post around which the
smaller had been wound. Then the whole, the larger, orangish fax, diapered
with bone-white parchment, had been bound up in a strip of tas, upon which the
Liaison s device was stamped in gold. One newly seated guffawed over his mug,
across the room. His fellows joined in.
It lay upon the striped ragony, amid the wet rings and crumbs of our meal.
Sereth only regarded the girl, who without breaking her silence laid two brass
keys beside the tas-bound tube.
She seemed to quiver all over, like a startled crier poised upon invisible
wings above some scum-choked pond.  He said, she gave forth at last,  that if
you would answer  no, I was to give you this. Her eyes had swelled to the
size of copper dippars. She seemed flesh-locked, under his scrutiny.
 And you have done so, he said, tossing his head. The movement seemed to free
her. She staggered slightly, like one who, long pushing upon some aged,
recalcitrant door, stumbles forward in surprise when at last rusted hinges [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]