Janet Morris - Silistra 03 - Wind from the Abyss

VIP免费

2024-12-18 0 0 487.03KB 171 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

to mv sister

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental.

thereof in any form.

A Baen Book

Baen Enterprises 8-10W. 36th Street New York, N.Y. 10018

First Baen printing, January, 1985. ISBN: 0-671-55932-X Cover art by Victoria

Poyser Printed in the United States of America

Distributed by

SIMON & SCHUSTER

MASS-MERCHANDISE SALES COMPANY

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10020

Contents

I. In Mourning for the Unrecotlected

II. The Wages of Forgetful ness

III. Seeking Stance in the Time

IV. The Gulf of Alternate Conceptions

V. Draw to Crux

VI. An Ordering of Affairs

VI!. Into the Abyss

VIII. The Passing of Khys

IX. The Law Within

X. In Deference to Owkahen

101

152

202

242

273

275

298

318

FRDMTH

Author's Note

Since, at the beginning of this tale, I did not recollect myself nor retain

even the slightest glftn-mer of such understanding as would have led me to an

awareness of the significance of the various occurrences that transpired at

the Lake of Horns then, I am adding this preface, though it was not part of my

initial conception, that the meaningful-ness of the events described by

"Khys's Estri" (as I have come to think of the shadow-self I was while the

dharen held my skills and memory in abeyance) not be withheld from you as they

were from me.

I knew myself not: I was Estri because the girl Carth supposedly found

wandering in the forest stripped of comprehension and identity chose that

name. There, perhaps, lies the greatest irony of all, that I named myself anew

after Estri Hadrath diet Estrazi, who in reality I had once been. And perhaps

it is not irony at all, but an expression of Khys's humor, an implied

dissertation by him who structured my experiences, my very thoughts, for

nearly two years, until his audacity drove him to bring together once more

Sereth crill Tyris, past-Slayer, then the outlawed Ebvrasea, then arrar to the

dharen himself; Chayin rendi Inekte, cahndor of Nemar, co-cahndor of the Taken

Lands, chosen son of Tar-Kesa, and at that time Khys's puppet-vassal; and

myself, former Well-Keepress, tiask of Nemar, and lastly becoming the

chaldless outlaw who had come to judgment and endured ongoing retribution at

the dharen's hands. To test his besting, his power over owkahen, the

time-coming-to-be, did Khys put us together, all three, in his Day-Keepers'

city—and from that moment onward, the Weathers of Life became fixed: siphoned

into a

Xll

Janet E. Morris

singular future; sealed tight as a dead god in his mausoleum, whose every move

but brought him closer to the summed total, death. So did the dharen Khys

bespeak it, himself. . . .

In Mourning for the Unrecollected

The hulion hovered, wings aflap, at the window, butting its black wedge of a

head against the pane. Its yellow eyes glowed cruelly, slit-pupiled. Its white

fangs, gleaming, were each as long as my forearm.

I screamed.

Its tufted ears, flat against its head, twitched. Again and again, toothed

mouth open wide, it battered at the window, roaring.

Once more I screamed, and ran stumbling to the far wall of my prison. I

pounded upon the locked doors with my fists, pressing myself against the wood.

Sobbing, I turned to face it.

The beast's ears flickered at the sound. Those jaws, which could have snapped

me in half, closed. It cocked its head.

I trembled, caught in its gaze. I could retreat no farther. I sank to my

knees, moaning, against the door frame.

The beast gave one final snort. Those wings, with a spread thrice the length

of a tall man, snapped decisively, and it was gone.

When it was no more than a speck in the greening sky, I rose clumsily,

trembling, to collect the papers I had strewn across the mat in my terror.

They were the arrar Carth's papers, those he had forgotten in his haste to

attend his returning master's summons. : 1

2Janet E. Morris

I knelt upon my hands and knees on the silvery pile, that I might gather them

up and replace them in the tas-sueded folder before he returned.

Foolish, I thought to myself, that I had so feared the hulion. It could not

have gotten in. I could not get out. It could not get in. Once I had thrown a

chair at that impervious clarity. The chair had splintered. With one stout

thala leg, as thick as my arm, had I battered upon that window. All that I had

accomplished was the transformation of chair into kindling. The hulion, I

chided myself, could have fared no better.

Hulions, upon occasion, have been known to eat man flesh. Hulions, furred and

winged, fanged and clawed, are the servants of the dharen. I had had no need

to fear. Yet, I thought as I gathered the arrar Carth's scattered papers, they

are fearsome. Perhaps if I had been able, as others are, to hear its mind's

intent, I would have felt differently. My fingers, numb and trembling, fumbled

for the delicate sheets.

One in particular caught my eye. It was in Carth's precise hand and headed:

"Preassessment monitoring of the arrar Sereth. Enar fourth second, 25,697."

I had met, once, the arrar Sereth. Upon my birthday, Macara fourth seventh, in

the year '696 had I met him, that night upon which my child had been

conceived. I had read of his exploits. He frightened me, killer of killers,

enforcer for the dharen, he who wore the arrar—chald of the messenger. Sereth,

scarred and lean and taut like some carnivore, who had loved the Keepress

Estri, my namesake, and with her brought great change upon Silistra in the

pass-Amarsa, 25,695—yes, I had met him.

I sat myself down cross-legged upon the Galeshir carpet, papers still strewn

about, forgotten, and began to read:

WIND FROM THE ABYSS 3

The time is approximately three enths after sun's rising, the weather clouded

and cool, our position just south of the juncture of the Karir and Thoss

rivers. I highly recommend that you look in upon the moment.

The arrar Sereth, on the brindle hulion Leir, touched his gol-knife. It was

the first unnecessary movement he had made in over an enth. My presence,

alongside upon a black hulion, disquieted him. The brindle, gliding at the

apex of its bound, snorted. He touched its shoulder, and the beast, obedient,

angled its wings and began its descent.

When its feet touched the grass, he set it as a grounded lope. I followed

suit, bringing my black up to pace him.

Sereth regarded me obliquely. I, as he, served the dharen, he thought, and

touched his hulion to a stop.

We had been riding all the night, up from Galesh, where I had met him with the

two beasts. He had served dharen, most lately, in Dritira. And before that, in

the hide diet, and before that upon the star world M'ksakka had he dealt death

and retribution at Khys's whim. And dealt them successfully, though those

tasks had been fraught with deadlier risk than a man might be expected to

survive. His thought was wry, recollecting.

"How did you find M'ksakka?" I asked, to key him, to bring something else

above the impenetrable shield he has constructed. My hulion growled at the

brindle he rode, and that one answered.

"1 will make a full report to Khys," he said, slipping off the hulion's back.

"Let us rest them."

I joined him where he lay upon the grass, staring at the sky.

"I missed this land," he said. "The sky there is dark and ominous, always

clouded. M'ksakkan air stings eyes and lungs. Everything is covered with a

fine black dust. I would not go again off the planet."

4Janet E. Morris

"Perhaps he will not send you," I conjectured.'

He saw M'ksakka, and that seeing was colored by his distaste, both for the

world and the work he had done there. The methods he had employed displeased

his sense of fitness. The value of the M'ksakkan's death was to him obscure. I

saw the moment: the adjuster's surprised eyes, wide and staring as Sereth's

fingers closed on his throat, around his windpipe; the M'ksakkan's clawing

hand upon his wrist as he ripped out the man's larynx, vocal cords dangling;

then the blood, spurting, and the sound of the adjuster's choking death.

And I saw others he had killed, those who were anxious to try their skills

against a real live Silistran. He had been hesitant to do so, but more

hesitant to face an endless line of their ilk, so he had killed the first

three. Again, his thoughts sank below readable level. The hulions lay quiet,

lashing their tails. The clouds scudded heavy over the sun. A soft, drizzling

rain commenced,

"The dharen is pleased with you," I said.

He sat up, his mind absolutely, inviolate. "What do you want, Carth?" He

stared down at me. I lay perfectly still He made no attempt to read me for his

answer. He merely waited.

"A first impression. You are coming up for assessment," I answered, rising up.

"We want to get some sense of you. Your mental health is now our concern."

He tossed his head, ripping grass from the sward.

"You brought child upon that wellwoman in Dritira," I prodded.

He saw her. In many ways she had reminded him of the Keepress. It had been

passes since he had taken a woman. On M'ksakka there were females, but nothing

he understood to be a woman. He had not couched many of them. And in hide

diet, there were only forereaders. In Dritira, with that woman who reminded

him of the Keepress, he had spent his long-pent sperm. Four times he had used

her, before

WIND FROM THE ABYSS 5

she was more than a receptacle in his sight. And he had abused her, more than

was his custom.

"Get me the forms. I will collect my birth-price," he answered. He did not

want the woman.

"You should take her. We have been considering her. She might yet make a

forereader,"

"Then it is a pity she caught. From inferior sperm can come only inferior

stock."

"Khys has asked me," I said, "to bid you welcome to any of the forereaders we

hold in common at the lake. Spawn from such a union would be doubtless

possessed of talent. The bitterness you hold is out of proportion to the

reality. We all, at one time or another, find there is something we want that

we may not have."

He did not answer me, but rose and went to his hulion. He thought of her as

one thinks of the dead; with acceptance, and then of his life, and what

compromises he had made to keep it. What he let me know, I have no doubt, will

please you. What he did not—that is what concerns me. He allowed me nothing

else for the duration of our return.

His shield, as you will see, is set lower and much farther into his deeper

conscious than any I have encountered. Most of his processing must take place

behind it. Deep-reading him is out of the question. He visualizes barely

enough to verbalize his will. That he is functioning superbly is attested to

by his works. 'That he feels it to his advantage to serve us at present is a

certainty. I worry over what might occur, should he choose, eventually, not to

serve us.

My formal recommendation is for a complete and detailed assessment. Also, I

feel some attempt might be made to pacify him, in light of what he is fast

becoming. Or perhaps even to eliminate him, lest he become, like Se'keroth,

the weapon turned upon the wielder.

And it was signed Carth.

"Carth!" I gasped, as a dark hand snapped the

6Janet E. Morris

sheet from my grasp. Still upon my knees, I twisted to see him. His dark eyes

gleamed. He ran his hand through his black curls.

"Did you find this informative, Estri?" he asked, towering over me, the paper

crumpled in his fist. Carth was furious. I dared not answer.

I started to my feet.

"Pick them up!" he commanded, pointing.

I scurried to obey him, scrambling for the sheets strewn upon the web-work, my

stomach an icy knot. Once before, I had seen Carth this agitated, when I had

written for him a certain paper. And he had called it audacious, and destroyed

it. I finished, and rose to my full height, handing the tas envelope to him.

My head came to his shoulder. He looked down at me, sternfaced.

"You were ill-advised to do this," he said. "He is not pleased with you.

This"—and he threw the crumpled sheet across the room—"will only aggravate

matters. You had best make some effort to placate him."

"What do you mean?" I demanded. "Has he taken some sudden interest in me?" I

had seen the dharen precisely three times since I had come to reside at the

Lake of Horns: the night he had gotten me with child, the day following, and

once while I lay near death when the child had driven me to seek it. He had

not been at the Lake of Horns when I bore his he-beast into the world. I had

cried out for him during that premature and extended labor. He had not been

available. Now, nearly eight passes later, he had returned.

"Do not be insolent!" Garth's voice snapped as his palm slapped my face to one

side. Tears in my eyes, I put my hand to my cheek. It was what I had thought,

not what I had said, that had brought me punishment. Shaking my head, I backed

away from him. Though I had known Carth a telepath, a surface-reader, rarest

of Silistran talents, never had

WIND FROM THE ABYSS 7

he shown his skills before me, one who neither spoke nor heard the tongues of

mind.

"Estri, come here."

I went to him, my hand trailing from my cheek to the warm, pulsing band locked

about my throat.

When I stood before him, he lifted my face, his hand under my chin, that I

might look into his eyes.

"He is very angry, child. You must realize that what you think is as audible

to him as what you say. I know it was not intentional, that you read what you

did. Forget it, if you can. Concentrate upon what lies before you." He patted

my shoulder, all the anger gone out of him.

"I do not want to see him," I said, toying with the ends of my copper hair,

grown now well below mid-thigh.

Carth pursed his lips. "You have no choice. He will see you in a third-enth.

Make ready." And he turned and strode through the double doors that adjoined

my prison to Khys's quarters. Khys, my couch-mate, was again in residence. The

dharen of all Silistra, back from none knew where, would again rule at the

Lake of Horns.

Make ready, indeed, I thought, combing my hair. I had only the white,

sleeveless s'kim I wore; thigh-length, of simple web-cloth. My jewelry was the

band of restraint at my throat. I retied the garment upon my hips. Throwing my

hair back, I regarded myself in my prison's mirrored wall. My body,

copper-skinned, lithe, only shades lighter than my thick mane, postured at me,

arrogant. I had thought, for a time, that the he-beast had destroyed it, but

such had not been the case. Exercise had given its grace and firmness back to

me. My legs are very long, my waist tiny, hips slim. Pregnancy had altered me

little. My breasts were still high and firm, my belly flat and tight. Good

enough for him, surely. I widened my eyes suggestively, then

Janet E. Morris

stuck my tongue out at her. She made a face back. I grinned and wondered why I

had done so, turning from that wall that ever showed me the boundaries of my

world.

At the window, I waited, looking out upon the eastern horn of the lake. The

fall flames of Brinar, harvest pass, fired the forest. The grass was losing

its battle, browning. Hulions and forereaders and Day-Keepers strolled between

the tusk-white buildings that circle the Lake of Horns like some wellwoman's

necklace. The green lake was calm and still, wearing the sky's clouds for

masquerade.

Angry, was he? I did not care. I cared no more for him than that he-beast he

had put upon me. I would not care.

I had cared very much, once. He had been kind to me that first night. I had no

recollection of other men before him, though surely there had been some. In my

lost past lay all that had occurred before I came to the Lake of Horns in

Cetet of '695, two years, two passes back. And I had cared for him, he who

first touched me, Khys.

He had told me he would do many things. He had done some. He had put on me a

son. He had seen to it that I was reeducated. I had been looked after, but not

by him. He had also said that someday the band of restraint I wore would be

removed from me, that I might explore my talents. That he had not done. After

the pregnancy, he had promised, when I lay near miscarriage by my own hand.

But no release had been given me after I birthed him his precious child,

I touched the warm, vibrating band at my throat. I hardly minded its

tightness. I could often forget that it was there. But its true significance I

could not forget. Khys had explained to me that I wore the band for my own

protection, lest the mindless-ness reach up again and take me. I had learned

otherwise.

WIND FROM THE ABYSS 9

Early in my pregnancy, when they still humored me, I had begged to be allowed

to stay with the forereaders in the common holding, that I might have the

company of womankind. Reluctantly, Carth had agreed.

I had sent for him to take me back, weeping, upon the third day. Among the

forereaders, I was an outcast. Those born at the Lake of Horns feel themselves

better than all others. My skin tone resembles theirs. Those who come from the

outside, or "Barbaria," as the Lake-born call it, are an even tighter group. I

fit neither. And I was the dharen's alone. They were jealous, commonheld. Or

so I thought, until I saw an angry dharener stride into the women's keep and

collar a moaning, pleading forereader. So do they punish wrongdoers at the

Lake of Horns. As long as she wore the band of restraint, the forereader could

not practice her craft. She was isolate. She was blind, deaf, and dumb to mind

skills. She could not sort. Neither could she best. She was helpless. She was

shamed. She was marked, disgraced. As was I.

When Carth had retrieved me, I had demanded to know, sobbing uncontrollably,

what it was I had done.

He had for me no answer, but that I wore the band for my own protection.

But after that, I began to wonder. I wondered until the child began to make

itself known within me, until I could think of nothing else. Ravening, it

tried to destroy me. In time, I tried to destroy myself, first, that perhaps I

would not spawn such evil upon the world. But it would not let me die. It

enjoyed too much the torture to which it could subject me from within.

When it was born, finally, after thirteen enths of labor, I refused to look

upon it. I would not feed it. They forced me twice, but the he-beast was ,so

agitated, red-faced, and howling, and its teeth so

Janet E. Morris

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

savage upon me, that they desisted. I had never heard of a child born with

teeth, but I had known it would have them. I felt their bite a full pass

before the thing demanded exit. I was glad to be rid of it, a pass before it

was due.

He could not blame me, surely, if he had seen it. If his mind had touched it,

he would not be angry. I leaned back against the window, waiting.

It was more than twice the third-enth Carth had given me before those doors

opened and he motioned me to him, his concerned eyes admonishing as I passed

by him into Khys's personal quarters.

The dharen stood by the gol table, stripping off trail gear as blue-black as

the thala walls. His copper hair glinted golden from the tiny suns,

Day-Keeper-made, that hovered near the hammered bronze ceiling.

Carth crossed the thick rust rug, soundless, to speak with him. Then only did

Khys look at me. I pressed back against the doors, trembling. His face, in

that moment, had been terrible with his wrath.

Carth made obeisance to himf and left the outer doors.

The dharen paid me no mind, but stripped himself of his leathers and weapons.

I watched him, the only man that had ever touched me. I had forgotten him, his

long-legged grace, his considerable mass so lightly carried, his ruddy,

glowing skin.

In his breech, he went and poured himself some drink and took it to his

rust-silked couch. Upon it he sat cross-legged, sipping slowly, his eyes

regarding me over the bowl's golden rim. The crease between his arched brows

deepened. He threw the emptied bowl to the mat, where it rolled silently upon

the thick pile. My throat ached, looking at him.

Then I recalled to myself that which he had done to me, and that which he had

not done. I

tossed back my hair and pushed away from the door.

"I was told you wished to see me," I said quietly, my fists clenched at my

sides.

He stared at me a time in silence through those molten, disquieting eyes. I

felt my palms slick under his indolent, possessive scrutiny.

"Take that off," he ordered. "I would see how childbearing left you."

I flushed/but I untied the s'kim and dropped it.

"Turn," he said. Shaking with rage, I did so, kicking my abandoned garment

from my path. When I came again to face him, I put my hands on my hips.

"Well?" I demanded, shaking my hair over one breast.

"Do not stand like that!" he snapped. My hands went to my sides. "Come here."

"Khys!" I objected. My head exploded with pain. I sank to my knees, my hands

clapped over my ears. But they could not keep out that roaring, Then another

pain, and my head was twisted back by the hair. By it, he pulled me up against

him.

"How dare you withhold sustenance from my son?" he demanded. I thought my neck

would snap. His other hand held my wrists against the small of my back. "How

dare you come to me in such arrogance?" He shook my head savagely, his words

hissing a fine spray upon my cheek. "You have disobeyed my expressed wishes.

You will not do so again. When I am finished with you, you will not be so

presumptuous." Lifting me into the air, he threw me against the wall above the

couch. I struck it with my back and shoulder with such force that the breath

was driven from my lungs.

He stood, spread-legged, looming over me. I did not move. I lay very still, as

I had fallen, that I might not further enrage him. My mouth was foul with

fear. My mind cried and whimpered. I raised

Janet E. Morris

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

my face to him, pleading. His thick-lashed eyes, half-closed, were unreadable.

"Khys, please," I begged him, hoarse. "I could do no different. It is a

monster, a beast. Please, I tried. It drove me mad. It tried to kill me.

Punish

it, not me."

His nostrils flared. He shook his head, his mouth twisted in disgust. "Sit on

your heels," he commanded.

I did so, my whole body sheened with sweat, my knees pressing into the couch

silks. My arms clasped about me, I shivered in spasms. I hardly knew him, the

dharen. Never before had he raised a

hand to me.

"You had not given me cause," he said. Still did he breathe heavily, still was

his body taut with

rage.

I ran my hands through my hair, tearing it from my eyes, trying desperately to

stop thinking. But I could not. I was hypnotized by him, poised menacing above

me. I felt as I had with the hulion— trapped, defenseless, vulnerable.

"I am frightened," I whispered, my eyes downcast.

"That shows you are not totally mad," he said. Hearing the amusement in his

voice, I raised my head. I recalled his face as it had been when I had lain

near death with his child in my belly, his concern, his compassion. I saw,

now, no trace of such

emotions.

He stripped off his breech. I saw very still, watching the play of muscles

across his back.

"Once," he said softly, straightening up, "you asked me to teach you your

femaleness. I thought you too weak, then. I did what needed done, and nothing

more. Doubtless your failure to function as a woman lies partly upon me, I am

going to attempt to remedy the situation before it kills you."

But when he came toward me, I could not do it.

I could not sit and let him vent his anger upon me. I fled, as far as he

allowed. When he chose, I found myself imprisoned within my own body, and it,

of its own accord, returning to him. He stood calmly by the couch and took my

flesh from my control. I could not speak. I found myself at his feet, my head

pressed to the mat.

He let me try those bonds, for a while, let me dance upon the brink of

madness. When he took his will from my limbs, I did not move.

He flipped me casually onto my back, crouching down, menacing. His large head

came close to mine.

"Lie still, and do as you are told. Only that, no more." And I did so, until I

forgot, in my need, his instruction. The taste of blood in my mouth, the flat

of his hand against my searching lips, reminded me. I laid my head back

against his thigh as my body leaped to him, pleading, I heard my voice

repeating things he had bade me say, without understanding. And later, when

his teeth and tongue were upon me, did I beg for his use. And I did for him

what I had not known a man would ask of a woman, whimpering. And he, raised on

stiff arms above me, laughed. As he thrust into me, I sobbed his name, my love

for him, my need. And then his weight came down and I could but cling to him

as he rocked me. When I thought my bones would shatter, he grunted, shivered,

and lay still.

He stayed with me, holding his weight upon one arm, stroking my hair back from

my forehead.

"I needed you so much when I had the child within," I whispered.

"I know," he said. "I have a world to run." His , eyes narrowed. I felt him, I

thought, in my mind. : "Do you know how lonely it is for me, locked *p?"

"I can do nothing else with you." He rolled away,

Janet E. Morris

onto his side. "But I will be here. My works are progressing nicely. I need

not be elsewhere.

"I want you to understand something," he continued, taking me into his arms.

"I have what I wanted from you." His voice was gentle. His hands wandered my

hips. "I must see a radical change in your behavior to justify the trouble of

you. Carth tells me it is doubtful that you would survive another pregnancy."

"I do not take your meaning," I said numbly. "There are more than two thousand

forereaders at the Lake of Horns, many extremely attractive, all skilled and

cooperative. I cannot, for reasons I will not explain, put you in common

holding." I roiled away from him. "Did the child please you?" I asked. "Yes."

"But I do not." My voice shook. I had been breeding stock to him. I was no

^longer useful as such.

"No," he said. "You do not." "I did the best I could," I flared. "I am

ignorant of couch skills."

He laughed, touching my lips with his finger. "It was a start," he admitted.

"If you live, you might learn to serve a man properly. You misunderstand me,

or I give you more understanding of life here than you have." He sat up, and

pulled me by the hair into his lap.

"I had not intended to breed you again. If I do decide to do so, you may not

survive it. I am not in need of a contentious, undisciplined female. Either

you will become otherwise, or I will have to breed you to justify your

existence."

"Have to?" I asked. My terror of pregnancy and that of death balanced even.

"You are coming up for assessment. I must follow my own rules, if I expect

others to obey them." I shivered, buried my head in his lap. I thought

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

of what I had read; I could not help it. I waited for the pain of his

displeasure. It did not come. His hand went around my throat, lifted my head.

He bent and pressed his lips to mine. I felt him move against my thigh. My

hand sought him, and he allowed it. He bent his bite to my nipples, erect and

waiting.

Something, within me, turned and rustled in that couching, and halfway through

it, when I choked and gagged on him, it woke itself to my aid. I shifted

position, arched my neck slightly, and my discomfort disappeared. Easily,

sure, I worked upon him, my lips against the very root of him, my nose in his

golden hairs. And he shuddered and his hands came upon the back of my neck,

and I let him slide forward, that I might get the taste of him. As he pulsed

in my mouth, I ran my tongue, fast, hard, up and down the underside of him.

And the dharen moaned and twisted, his hands convulsive upon me.

When he cursed, softly, laughing, I sat up to see him. My strangeness still

upon me, I noted his fine-chiseled lips, swollen with his heat. Then I bent

again, licking, nipping, and took from him that last aftertaste.

By criteria I had not known before, I read his body's response, my cheek

against his hard belly, that I might feel his excitement, judge it by the

wane.

"Tell me again, dharen, what you might do to ane, if I cannot sufficiently

please you." And I heard my voice, deeper and more upon breath, and it seemed

to me that it was a stranger's voice, with an accent I could not place.

He grunted, sat slowly. He cuffed me lightly, pushed my head from his lap,

crossing his legs under him. I regarded him, discerningly, and found him not

wanting. ' "Insolent saiisa," he growled, grinning.

Janet E. Morris

And I knew the word's meaning, though it is man-slang, and Carth never spoke

crudely. The word means coin girl, of the cheapest variety and questionable

skill.

"I wish I were even that, rather than living my life in that chamber," I said,

the mood gone, and with it that odd confidence and comfort.

"You may have the both of them, yours and mine, for a while." His eyes probed

mine. "Is that one of those things a woman instinctively knows?" he asked, and

I knew what he meant, but I had no answer. I smoothed the rumpled couch silks.

"Perhaps I read it," I said. I wanted to crawl into his lap, curl into a ball,

and sleep. More than I had wanted the child out of me, even, I wanted his

approval. I recalled those nights, alone, I had cried myself to sleep over

him, He stared at me, his head slightly cocked. I remembered my humiliation,

that he would not even deign to use me, that he cared not even enough to check

on the growth of his child in my belly.

I laid my hand upon his forearm, upon the copper, silky hairs there. His skin,

a reddish gold, was shades lighter than mine, and the glow upon it was more

pronounced.

"Khys," I whispered, "keep me with you, please. I will be whatever you want.

Just give me time." I did not look at him. Tears I had, thought long spent

came and drowned me. "I love you," I blurted, miserable, not understanding.

And he pulled me up beside him, and in those arms I poured out my pain to him,

my confusion, my doubts. I begged him to explain why I wore the band upon my

neck. I pleaded for my past, or some way he might know to make me whole

without it. And I asked him of the child, and why it had been such a curse

while residing in my womb.

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

He said nothing, until I had finished, dry of words and tears both.

"I will discuss it with you," he allowed, still holding me. "I am not prone to

patience, I will speak of these things once, only. You will never ask me

again."

I nodded, my head pressed against his chest, where his copper hair grew thick.

"First the band. When and if you show signs of emotional stability, we will

consider removing it. When you were progressing so well, those first passes, I

had thought we might have done so by now."

"It was the child, and the pain from its growth," I whispered.

"And it was you who chose to experience your pregnancy as you did. Another

woman would have, perhaps, enjoyed it, loved the child, and cried when it was

taken from her. Still another might have filled her time with study, or some

creative work. Females have been bearing young for thousands upon thousands of

years."

I pulled away from him. He looked at me narrow-eyed.

"I am not insulting you. I am going to explain something to you. You were, so

to speak, born anew two years ago. You still gather the experiential

perspectives most acquire when they are babies. • You could not get them from

lying, hungry, denied mother's milk. You could not get them, learning to walk.

You still gather the experiential perspectives; those upon which adult

behavior must be based. Wait!" he snapped, as I sought to interrupt him. I sat

back upon my heels.

"You wear the band. It is my will that you con-;tinue to wear it. If it

pleases you to feel that you are unjustly marked by it, then feel so. The

fore-readers in common holding did not ostracize you of the band. Where there

are women, there

Janet E. Morris

WIND FROM THE ABYSS

are great stores of information. I am sure they know all about you. You are

not common-held. You come from the outside, but are complexioned as a blood

princess among them. And those women from outside, perhaps rightly, hate the

superior lake-breds. When I allowed it, I was sure you would not stay. I

wanted you to realize the value of your isolation. You did not.

"No one has barred you from any studies you might have wished to pursue.

Tutors of all sorts might attend you. One makes what one wants of the

opportunities life presents."

"But I may not walk the lakeside. I may not even walk the dharen's tower."

"You attempted suicide. We found it necessary to restrain you."

"Before that?" I tossed my hair forward. It fell shining, past my knees,

copper ends on the rust silks.

"It was too early. You were not ready. You are still not ready. If your memory

does come back to you, and you have not become ready, it will destroy you.

There is nothing I can do to hasten its return, nor would I choose to do so."

His voice had a tinge of impatience. He closed his eyes for a moment.

"And my child?" I asked him.

"Your child is no monster, only the first of-its kind."

"How can that be?" I shifted, knees aching.

He rose and filled two bowls from that golden pitcher and brought me one. I

tasted it, found it fine kifra, dry and live. I sipped, laid the cool metal

upon my thighs.

"Look at yourself," he commanded. A muscle ticked upon his jaw.

I did, and back at him, my hand upon the bowl to balance it.

"Once the fathers spread their seed widely upon

the land. We have long been about gathering up those offspring. You are one we

missed. Surely you knew it when you saw your resemblance to the lake-born."

I had considered it, but felt it some pretentious fantasy.

"But there are other children."

"Other attempts. This is the first that has matched my vision."

"I still do not understand."

"I did not expect you would. But I have told you that you at least have some

truths to work with, building your particular reality. Build it well, for you

must live within that construction." His voice had an edge, and he drained the

bowl he held and set it down. My stomach lurched, tightened, as he approached.

"What is assessment?" I asked.

"You will find out, soon enough," he said, taking the bowl from my lap. His

long fingers fondled my breast. I twisted, that I might free myself.

"Do not flinch from me," he ordered, but softly.

"I would give you a few more truths for your

reality. You are mine. I will do with you what

pleases me. Lie back."

-" I lay back, stretching my aching legs out straight.

"I do not wish to be touched, not now," I objected, but I did not move away

from his hand.

"Then do not wish it. Your wish has very little bearing upon what will occur,

at this moment, or any other. But you will wish it shortly. I promise

you."

I was his. And he did what he pleased with me, . and within an enth, all I

wished was his couching.

I found myself alone, in his chambers. The doors ;, were not locked. He had

looked back at me, almost TV smiling, and left one door ajar. •'^ And I had

risen to my feet and gone to stand ||;before them, my arms clutched around me,

shiver-

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

tomvsisterWINDFROMTHEABYSSThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©1978byJanetE.MorrisAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereofinanyform.ABaenBookBaenEnterprises8...

展开>> 收起<<

Janet Morris - Silistra 03 - Wind from the Abyss.pdf

共171页,预览35页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Janet Morris - Silistra 03 - Wind from the Abyss

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: