Maze of Moonlight, Gael Baudino [ebook reader screen TXT] 📗

afraid that you'll just have to get used to them both.”

Elves. Jerome was speechless. His spies of the intellect had deserted him utterly.

“Spoken like a delMari,” said Paul. “And thank you, Terrill, for your help. Will you be coming with us?”

“I have kin in Saint Brigid,” said Terrill dispassionately. “I would not willingly let them suffer at the hands of such as threaten them.” He turned his head towards Malvern and, after a moment, shut his eyes as though in pain. “Or burn our home.”

“Well, Jerome?” said Martin.

Jerome floundered, at once outnumbered and out of his depth. “You are . . . all welcome,” he said slowly. “And you shall have whatever you need, my . . . uh . . . son.”

Paul shook his head, tightened his arm about Martin's shoulders. “No, Jerome,” he said. “My son.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Mirya appeared determined to reach the alliance forces as quickly as possible, and to this end, she had struck off directly across Malvern, heading straight for the still-spreading forest fire. As the night and part of the first day passed, the smoke grew palpably thicker, and by afternoon, though Mirya seemed unaffected by the foul air, Christopher was coughing.

“We need to stop,” she said when the sun was directly overhead. “You must rest.”

Christopher decided that he needed pure air far more than rest. In fact, with the trunks of the trees now distinctly washed by a gray haze, he had no confidence that, if he went to sleep, he would ever wake up.

“I understand,” said Mirya.

Christopher hacked uselessly, his lungs full of what felt like burning wool. “I wish that you people wouldn't read my mind. I've got some thoughts that I'd like to keep private.”

Mirya half smiled. “Are you referring to the lustful ones regarding Natil? I assure you: she was flattered.”

Christopher glared at the Elf, but she indicated that he should lie down.

“Rest. Sleep,” she said. “You are safe here. I am sorry that I have so taxed you.”

Christopher remained on his feet. “It's necessary.”

“That is true.” Mirya maintained her irritating tranquillity. “But it is also necessary for your kind to rest, and though I have no excuse for such a lapse, I sometimes forget that. I will shield you from the smoke.”

Christopher stiffened. There it was. Peach trees. “You're going to work magic on me, aren't you?”

Behind their calm gleam, Mirya's eyes were compassionate, even kind. “I only wish to help.”

His jaw clenched. Then: “Like you helped my grandfather?”

The Elf dropped her eyes, sighed.

“What did you do to him, anyway?” The words came easily: at last he could ask. “Take his soul?”

Mirya pressed her lips together, fixed him with her gaze. “Do you ask for him, Messire Christopher? Or for yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you want to be your grandfather?”

She had laid her finger directly on it, and suddenly, all that he had ever admired and abhorred in Roger bubbled up in a geyser of conflict. “No!” he almost shouted at her, “I didn't.” Stung, he looked for something with which to strike back. “Did you take care of that, too?”

But Mirya only shook her head. “You make your own choices, Christopher.”

“Of course,” he said, “after you've set up the patterns to suit yourself, I can make all the choices I want, can't I?”

She merely looked at him, and Christopher remembered that her race was fading, had already faded. Choices? Patterns? Did he want to speak of them? What choices were left to Mirya and her kind after nearly fourteen centuries of active persecution?

After a long silence, she finally spoke. “I did the best I could, messire. I can only say that I did not act out of anger, but out of a desire to preserve.”

“Saint Brigid?”

“It is so.”

And Christopher, also trying to preserve Saint Brigid, was groping towards his goal with all the surety of a blind man on a battlefield. But Mirya had accomplished her ends by striking a single individual. Christopher, on his part, was determined to slaughter thousands.

Who was right? Who was wrong? His lungs burned, and he hacked again, but they refused to clear. “You're making me crazy.”

She shook her head again. “Now you begin to see as do we. Once, the Lady reminded me that I had no sovereignty over all the patterns.” Her voice turned sad, bitter. “Now, for the most part, I cannot even see them.”

His head ached, and his lungs burned. He gave up and slept. When he awoke, they ate and continued on. The smoke grew thicker as they walked. Another few miles, and he was staggering. He must have blacked out and fallen then, for he was suddenly on his back, and Mirya was bathing his face with water from a skin she carried.

“It's hard going,” he said hoarsely. His lungs ached in protest at the poison he was pumping into them.

She nodded somberly, her face drawn and pale. She looked old. “It'll get worse ahead, I fear. I will do what I can.”

With her help, he got to his feet, but his pride won out then, and he refused her arm. Her face still pale, she nodded, turned, and set off once more. Christopher plodded doggedly after her. Soon, the smoke turned from a drifting fog into a solid presence. They might have been walking along the bottom of a milky lake. And now the heat of the approaching fire added to the pervasive oppression of the drought.

To Christopher's eyes, the world was ashimmer with smoke and smoke inhalation, but he was nonetheless surprised that, somehow, he was staying on his feet. This soup-like atmosphere of smoke and dust was fit for no one. At least—and he eyed Mirya who, head down and stoop shouldered, was trekking onward—no one who was human.

But as they continued on, as dusk fell and the smoke, thickening, blotted out details smaller than a tree, it struck him that, indeed, no one who was human could do this at all. With a sense of cold in his heart, he stumbled forward,