[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.” He smiled at her as she moved through the lamplight.“There are some clothes in that chest.People will think I conjured you out of gold and fire and ivory, the way you are now.”She eyed him.He did not seem in much pain, but his eyes were bright with fever and he moved and spoke slowly, as if air were too heavy to shift aside, too heavy to breathe.Worried, she asked, “What will heal you? Are there desert plants I can find?”“No.I need to rest.”“How long?”“I don’t know.I’ve never been attacked by an enchantment before.I’m sorry,” he added, at her expression.“You’ll have to wait.I’ll take care of myself if you don’t want to look at me.”She sat down on the opposite bench, dropped her face in her hands, felt the desert grit behind her eyes.“Nyx will be waiting for you to bring me back.In exchange for the true key.She’ll wonder when you don’t come.”“Most likely, she’ll assume I died.”“And left me stranded.Moro’s eyes.What does that key open?”“Stone.Sky.” She looked up at the longing in his voice.“It opens time itself to reveal the dragon’s face.”She felt again a touch of his desire to wake dreams, to step into them.But she said only, “There are no dragons in Ro Holding- Nyx only wants the key because she does not know what it is.When she finds out, perhaps she won’t want it anymore.”“Some say there are no dragons in Saphier, either.”“There are no tales of dragons in Ro Holding.Why would she want a key to unbind dragons in Saphier?”“Because it exists?” he guessed.She was silent at that, knowing Nyx.“But if you told her what danger you are in—““I can’t speak of it,” he said.He didn’t; she was left listening to the silence.It took on an eerie quality then, as if the sandstone walls were paper-thin and something crouched beyond them, listening to her listen.She stirred finally.“Tell me what to do for you.”“Mages,” he said, with a faint grimace as a memory clawed his back, “are easy to care for.” He glanced into the other room: Skins and blankets had sorted themselves into a bed on the floor.Another formed beside the hearth.A thought struck her; he looked at her, reading her expression, or her thoughts.“Water.There is a river behind the house.It’s slow and warm even at night.If you want to bathe in that, I’ll set something on the bank to guard you.”“I’ll guard myself,” she said, uneasy at what guardian he might conjure up.But he sent one anyway, she noticed later, as she stood in dark water that mirrored a silvery stream of stars.An upright bar of light, elusive as color in moonlight, stood near her clothes.Exactly what it might do, she never knew; nothing disturbed the night.She emerged finally, dried herself with a blanket, and dressed in long, thin, flowing garments the colors of the desert.She sat on the blanket, combing her hair with her fingers and letting it dry, thinking helplessly of Nyx and the Holder, and the Gatekeeper, who had opened the gate for her into a stranger’s country.She lay back on the blanket, wanting the river to speak with his voice, the night to curve itself in his shape against her- Hew, she said without sound, wanting to protect even his name from the vast, dangerous, magic-riddled land.After a while, she went in, found Rad Ilex asleep at the table- She touched him; he vanished so abruptly that horror flashed through her: He had not been real at all, only some sending of himself.Then he reappeared, looking dazed.“Meguet.I forgot you.You frightened me.I was dreaming of the firebird.Only it had a human face.”“Whose face?” she asked, wondering what faceless mage he feared.But he said nothing more.She helped him rise; the bed, it seemed, was too far for his strength.He walked two steps and sagged into the pile beside the hearth, so deeply asleep he did not feel her undress him and wash his wounds with something besides the ice of dragon’s breath.At dawn she stood at the open door, watching the village wake.A patch of stone houses beside a river’s bend, it seemed little more than a scattering of pebbles between two planes of earth and sky.The south Luxour was flat as water, but she could see far in the distance the tiny, fantastic shapes of stonework among which dragons, or tales of dragons, dwelled.Along the river, in patches of green, sheep and goats grazed.People bringing buckets to the village fountain looked at her curiously.They did not speak, but their eyes said: The mage is back.Their faces looked brown and tranquil, like the desert stones.One old woman driving a cart stopped in front of Meguet, handed her a stone that had been rolling among some sacks in the cart.“For Rad,” she said.She had a broken tooth, and a face as wrinkled as a root.“For healing my donkey, last year.”“But what is it?”The woman’s sparse brows and the reins flicked up at the same time.“A dragon’s heart.” The reins came down, the cart lurched forward.“I’m going out again for stones.Tell him to stay home, this time.There’s nothing good beyond the Luxour.”“How do you know?” Meguet asked curiously.“How does news find its way here?”“People come and go- And they come back again, for they leave their hearts in the Luxour and they wander back all hollow looking for them.Sometimes,” she added with a half-smile, “I find them first.I keep them safe on my shelves until they’re claimed.” She ticked to the donkey; Meguet stared after her
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]