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

being removed, shaken out, and hung up on a peg, he also heard enough to tell him that Varden, as though unsure of what hospitality he might find in this house, had stayed just within the threshold.

Silence. The crackle of the fire. The scrape of branch against snow-laden thatch.

“It has been a long time,” said Varden at last.

Lake did not turn. “Ha' it been that long?”

“Twenty years,:

“That's na long . . . for such as you.”

Varden was silent. Then, cautiously: “I believe I feel the years more now than I once did.”

Even though his back was turned, Lake sensed his visitor's manner and presence. Slender and straight, arms folded, eyes troubled, Varden had not moved. It had indeed been a long time. Lake would have preferred that it had been longer.

“How is Ma?” Lake said at last.

“She is . . .” Varden's voice was suddenly strained. “She is dead, Lake. She died a week ago.”

Lake bowed his head, but he could not find the tears.

“We can still do much,” Varden continued softly, “but we cannot take away age.”

“You never could.”

“Not so. Once—” But Varden broke off, stood in silence. “Roxanne believed in cycles,” he said after a time, “and in her Goddess, and in death and rebirth. She would not have allowed such magic, even had it still been possible.”

Up in the loft, Vanessa stirred again. Lake started, looked towards the top of the stairs.

“But she was old,” said Varden. “It was her time, so she told us. Natil and Mirya and Terrill and I were with her when she left. Charity, too.” He hesitated. “I . . . I do not know where she is now.”

Lake found that his jaw was clenched against tears that he could not, would not feel. Annoyed with himself, he unclenched it. “Well, that's wha' comes o' being human,” he heard himself say. “That's wha' comes o' getting old. I'm old myself. Middle-aged, and getting fat and . . .”

Lake turned around, and he saw plainly the gleam of starlight about Varden. His voice caught. He could see it. Of course he could. And he could see what had happened to Vanessa, too. Thank God or the Lady or whoever watched over such as made up his family that it took that taint of ancient blood to detect such things, otherwise . . .

Involuntarily, he looked up at the loft again. No. Never. Vanessa would have a chance. Maybe in a city somewhere, away from her father, away from reminders, even unconscious reminders, of another heritage and race, her symptoms might fade. She might never know what she was. She might never have to.

Yes, he could do that. He could do . . . something.

“I'm . . . old myself,” he repeated. “I suppose that's good. I'd have a hard time explaining endless youth as well as everything else.”

Varden had not moved. “Everything else?”

“Well . . . the stories, the rumors. They've followed me even here. And I've ne'er learned to sleep very well. People noticed that, too.” Lake scuffed at the rushes on the floor. “It's hard to get away from your birth . . . or your parents.”

Varden's young face turned pained. “Lakei—”

“Dan call me that.”

Varden lowered his gaze. “And do you hate me so much?”

Lake turned away, eyes stinging. “I dan hate you. If I hate anything at a', I hate what you di' to me. An' so I hate wha' I di' to Vanessa.”

“I am sorry.” Varden fell silent again, and when Lake looked up, he noticed that, in addition to the almost subliminal shadow of starlight that played about Varden, there was a hint of transparency to him, as though he hovered on the borders of existence.

He blinked, looked again. It was true. Roxanne was dead, and Varden, in accordance with the fate of his kind, was . . . fading . . .

“Cam sit down an' . . .” Lake's voice caught at the invitation as much as at his realization, but he pushed on through, “. . . an' warm yourself.”

Varden hesitated for a moment, then nodded and sat down on the bench near the hearth. Clad simply in the green and gray of the shadowed forest, he seemed to Lake a gleaming, wild thing, as out of place in this peasant dwelling as a fox. But the firelight only heightened the sense of the ephemeral about him. Hovering, Only hovering. And Roxanne was dead. Soon, very soon, only the heritage would remain.

Lake remained standing. Outside, the wind picked up, and the snow rattled on the wooden shutters.

“I stayed away because I knew your desires,” said Varden, and if he himself had noticed the transparency, he gave no sign. “I came because I gave in to my own. Roxanne is . . .” The starlight in his eyes was troubled by grief, “Roxanne is gone. There are but four of us left in the world. I . . .”

He bent his head. Lake could not find the tears. Varden could.

“And so you wanted to see me,” said Lake.

“It is . . . so. I wanted to see you, to . . . to know that life continues. Roxanne and Charity speak of the mystery of the corn, the dry head of seed which appears dead, but which grows into new life. I need that hope now. So, I believe, do we all at this time of fading. So I wanted to see—”

“You wan' to know about Vanessa.”

Varden nodded. “I do. I looked. I have seen.”

“I was afraid you'd do that.”

Abruptly, the light in Varden's eyes turned angry, defiant. “Why? Do you not think that I care?”

Lake fought with his own anger, the burst of temper that would have done no good. How could one rage against what had already been done. Roxanne had loved Varden. Other people had loved . . . others. Lake's heritage was shared by many: how was it that he found the temerity to complain? “My other children—girls and boys both—they dan see