[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

would have annoyed old Mathieson; grinning at recollection of the aged man's
swearing, the Dreamweaver sat on the folded mass of the spanker and stared
over the mast. Blue sky shone like enamel between torn streamers of cloud. For
an instant she imagined she might never behold such beauty again. Then, with
the sturdy self-reliance of her fisherman forebears, the girl closed her eyes
and gathered her talent.
Heat and pain and searing brilliance: Taen felt herself immersed in fire. Body
and mind, she shared the suffering that riddled Jaric's flesh. Strangely, his
will seemed absent. Through a bottomless well of torment she searched, yet
found only the echoes of contentment generated by Sathid entities that judged
their conquest assured. But the conflict was not finished. Somewhere, somehow,
Jaric resisted still, for pain flared and sparked over his nerves with an
intensity that dismembered thought.
Taen fought to sustain her purpose. Though able to banish torment in an
instant, she dared not grant Jaric the reprieve she had offered once before;
should she try, his paired Sathid would recognize outside intervention and
attack. This time her only chance was to work through the beleaguered
consciousness of the victim himself. Though the agony inherent in the Cycle of
Fire dizzied her almost to delirium, Taen shaped her presence into a call of
compassion. Then, softly, tortuously, with many a hesitation and misstep, she
began to trace the network comprising the mind of
Ivainson Jaric.
The process caused her to know him better than ever before. Underneath the
Sathid's litany of conquest, she experienced the despair of an infant deprived
of mother and father. The taunts of boyhood apprentices became slights against
herself; and later, on the wind-whipped deck of a fishing boat, she shared a
betrayal she herself had helped complete, when the weight of a sorcerer's
inheritance fell full force upon the shoulders of a boy ill equipped to cope.
Pained by his suffering, Taen continued her search, through the heartbreak,
and the hardship, and rare moments of happiness. She explored Jaric's growth
all the way to adulthood, but still encountered no spark of the consciousness
that made the man.
At a loss, Taen drew back; bereft, almost beaten, she fought to preserve hope,
even as the predatory litany of Jaric's Sathid battered her dream-sense
ragged. At any moment the crystals might conquer, destroy this mortal who,
against the severest odds, had mustered courage to strive after powers he had
never desired. Desperate to avert the inevitable, Taen ransacked memories like
an eavesdropper. By accident she stumbled across a sliver of remembrance so
Page 53
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
well protected that she had overlooked it entirely until now. Jaric had sailed
to the Isle of the Vaere for Keithland; and also for love of the black-haired
daughter of an Imrill Kand fisherman.
Taen knew pain then, sharper than the physical torment of flame. Never could
she endure the ruin of one who treasured her more than life itself. Heedless
of discomfort, she hurled herself into the very heart of the conflagration.
There she found Jaric. Like a limpet in a tide pool, he clung to the most
precious memory he possessed. Once he had stood in Moonless's aft cabin,
struck dumb by recognition and loss; now, against the insupportable anguish of
the Cycle of Fire, Taen saw that he defended the last of his integrity with
the memory of herself, asleep in trance against the fine-grained wood of
Corley's chart table.
The discovery nearly unbalanced her. Dangerous as the bared edge of a razor,
the Sathid prepared to press their final attack. No margin for error remained.
Taen engaged her Dreamweaver's powers with utmost care. She did not force or
possess, but blended with Jaric's awareness; tenderly she reshaped the memory
he held in his inward eye. Adding dream-vision to his image, she caused the
girl at the table to lift her head and smile; along with awareness of her
presence, Taen gifted him with hope, and compassion, and light. She met the
gaze of the boy in the dreaming mind of the man; there followed a moment of
recognition as deep as the sea's depths, endlessly wide as night sky.
The Sathid felt Jaric stir with renewed life. Vengefully strong, they
redoubled their onslaught of pain. But even as fires flared to unendurable
torment, Taen acted. She reached through the network of Jaric's consciousness
and blocked all sensation of hurt.
His relief was immediate, but exhaustion left him limp. He lacked the vitality
to respond. Taen wept in dismay. The Sathid also felt Jaric falter; they
chiselled at his defences with ferocious energy. The Dreamweaver understood
that the instant he broke, her presence would be discovered. The matrixes
would then strike to engage her own crystal, and defeat for them both would be
final. Enraged by the threat of such loss, Taen could not bring herself to
retreat.
Suddenly a voice reached through her dismay. 'Fishwife. Will you never learn
to be patient?"
Taen smothered a flash of hope. Perhaps Jaric's passivity was feigned, a ruse
intended to throw the Sathid off guard while he marshalled resources for his
final step into mastery. Afraid for him, but steady, Taen watched while Jaric
extended his awareness into the raging heart of the conflagration. Defended
against pain, he now could merge with the living flame, unlock its structure
even as he had unriddled the pebble that granted him Earthmastery. Taen sensed
a stab of malevolence; Jaric and his enemy Sathid blurred into a single
entity. Then, in a split-second transition, he claimed his sorcerer's heritage
and tapped the force of the fire itself.
Energy raged raw across the contact. Taen felt herself savaged by a light that
brightened and blistered and waxed impossible to endure. Jaric became lost to
her, walled off by ringing roulades of power. No mind could encompass his
presence. Taen felt her dream-sense falter. Ivainson the man burned, then
blazed, then exploded into brilliance more terrible than Keithland's sun. The
Sathid presence recoiled in alarm. Jaric pursued. Vengeful as sword steel, he
struck. Searing illumination sundered the web of contact Taen had drawn about
his person. Even as Keithland's newest sorcerer achieved the Cycle of Fire,
her own awareness winnowed like blown sparks and went dark.
8
Gierj Circle
Alone in a sapphire expanse of ocean and sky, the Kielmark's brigantine
Moonless changed tack precisely according to schedule. The helmsman turned the
rudder hard alee. As the shadow of the spanker scythed across the quarterdeck,
Corley paused with his hands gripped fast to the rail and gazed astern, toward
Page 54
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • moje-waterloo.xlx.pl

    •