[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
though neither ate much.
Their eyes watched the harbor and the rising moon.
When the meal was done, Spyder leaned on the rooftop parapet and stared
impatiently outward. Aaliyah paced back and forth, her tread soundless, her
eyes wild with worry and torment as the night grew later.
Ronal was gone; Spyder had sent him to the wharves to learn what he could and
to keep watch from there.
A light wind stirred Spyder's short-cropped hair and played on the back of his
neck as he folded his hands together and leaned on the rough stone. The moon
and the night mocked him, he thought. The streets, indeed the city as far as
he could see, was a maddening patchwork of shadows lit only by
Sabellia's wan smile and the occasional flickering torch.
The bay and the sea beyond were a silvery mirror where nothing moved. Merchant
ships rested in their slips for the night; fishing boats bobbed lightly on
their lines at the docks.
He had chosen these apartments just for this view. Jamasharem would be
interested in the comings and goings in this city's harbor. The Rankan Empire
yet regarded Sanctuary with suspicion, and in truth, even fear. Too much had
happened here. The place was strange. Enchanted, some said. Cursed, said
others.
Whichever, gods and sorcerers and demons had left their marks here as they had
in no other city.
Why did it surprise him, then, that Sanctuary had finally called his name? He
was not the first of the
Vigeles line to be drawn in by its arcane allure. Indeed, his family had a
dark and shameful history here, a past that had cost House Vigeles its lands,
much of its wealth, its very reputation. So great was the shame that to bear
the name Vigeles was to be shunned throughout the Rankan Empire.
So he was Spyder, a man without heritage, without a nation.
And yet, for reasons he couldn't fully grasp, he served the Rankan emperor.
Some lingering ember of loyalty still burning in his breast? Some minuscule
hope of restoring the honor of the Vigeles?
It embittered him to deny his true name.
Aaliyah touched his arm, and he turned to her. Filled with a sudden need, he
drew her close and pressed his head down upon her shoulder. The smell of her
hair, the feathery brush of her fingers on his bare back whether by his action
or hers, his kilt fell away as their lips met. She tasted of honey and mint,
sweeter and more intoxicating than the wine in his cup.
On the couch beside the table, in the open night, they made love. The soft
illumination from the alabaster lamp highlighted the con-trast between their
bodies and charged the air with an eroticism and sensuality that, for a time,
allowed them to forget Sanctuary and danger, bitterness and fear. For a time,
they had no other mission, no other purpose, but each other.
Afterward, they lay side by side watching the moon. Spyder felt Aaliyah's
breathing, the soft vibration of her body next to his. He knew that she was
changing his life in a way that was both fantastical and disturbing. There was
no room in his life for the feelings she stirred in him, and yet already in
the short month since he'd found Aaliyah, he couldn't imagine being apart from
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
her.
He kissed her mouth, then rose from the couch. The sesame oil burning in the
lamp was beginning to smoke, so he sprinkled a few grains of salt in it to
stop the smoking. As he did so, something in the flame caught his attention.
He stared with puzzlement as a blood red shadow touched the edge of the flame
and slowly engulfed it, turning blacker and blacker.
Spyder jerked his gaze away and rubbed a thumb and finger over his eyelids.
Then he shot a glance at the moon. It floated in the sky over the harbor,
effulgent. Next, he noticed Aaliyah. She stood at the parapet, her attention
riveted on the moon, her fingers curled like claws on the stone, her body
rigid, and her head thrown back.
The braided flax wick in the sesame oil crackled suddenly, drawing his
attention once again, and the flame was just a yellow flame. But he knew,
without understanding how, that he had seen a vision of the coming eclipse in
that small lamp light, and that Aaliyah had shared that vision, or at least,
in her own way, that she had sensed something.
He caught her shoulders and drew her against him. Her face was a mask of panic
and desperation. He studied the harbor again for the Vasalan ship, then
slammed a palm down on the parapet in frustration.
Though it had only been a small vision, it had to mean something!
"Prepare yourself, Shahana
," he said, leading her to the staircase.
"They're here. They've gotten by us somehow. Now we have to find them."
They descended to their separate apartments. Spyder quickly donned garments of
black leather and threw a cloak about his shoulders. From a chest at the foot
of his bed he took a double-edged sword of
medium length. The scabbard, though sturdy, was unremarkable, but before he
strapped it on, he grasped the hilt and exposed a few inches of the blade. The
candlelight in his room gleamed on fine
Enlibar steel. To this, he added a plain dagger, and closed the chest once
more.
Dressed and armed, with one hand on the door, he paused and lingered beside
one of the several candles that lit his room. He stared at the flame, tried to
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]