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strained and distant. "Yes... you would sense that, too,
wouldn't you. Bard-to-be that you are? So many lives
lost, human and Other ... I can feel their auras even
now, calling to me...."
"Well, don't answer them!" Lydia snapped, and
Naitachal blinked like someone suddenly shaken from
a dream.
"No," he said, and then more confidently, "no!"
But as they rode on across the meadow, the others
could see shudders racking his slender frame. The
Dark Elf was plainly fighting some terrible inner battle
of his own, struggling against all the long, cruel years of
childhood conditioning screaming at him, You are a crea-
twe of the Darkness! Leave the light behind you!
Unexpectedly, Eliathanis brought his mule
alongside. "Take my hand," he said softly.
"What "
"Take it. Hold fast. Yes, like that. Think of sunlight,
Naitachal. Think of life and joy. They are the only
realities here."
Kevin saw the White Elf wince with the force of
Naitachal's desperate grasp- But Eliathanis refused to
let go, as though willing peace into the Dark Elf
through that link.
And little by little the tension left Naitachal's body.
He shuddered one last time, then released the White
Elf's hand, looking at Eliathanis in confusion.
"Thank you," the Dark Elf said after a moment. "I hard-
ly expected you to wish to help me, but thank you."
"Ah. Well." Eliathanis flushed, embarrassed by his
own kindness. "I... didn't want you rousing anything
undead against us."
"I wouldn't willingly." Then Naitachal added, very
softly, "But it was a near thing."
CASTLE OF DECEPTION 153
Alatan, sorcerer, necromancer, paced impatiently
back and forth on the ramparts of his small, square
keep, glancing now and then out over the smooth,
treeless expanse of meadow without really seeing it.
He was alone up there, the only living being in all the
keep, alone save for a few silent, soulless aides.
"Damn her!" he hissed.
And damn him for a fool for ever letting himself be
forced to be responsible to her! So much time had
passed without a word from her. He'd almost let him-
self believe the rumors that the sorceress was dead, or
so far from here that she'd forgotten all about him and
the debt he owed her: the debt of his life.
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Oh no. She hadn't forgotten. All at once there had
come that summons, and with it the infuriating
knowledge that he still wasn't free, any more than he'd
been free so many years ago... when the peasants had
caught him weak from the aftereffects of a failed spell,
had caught him and condemned him to death by
fire-- -.
The sorcerer stopped short, black cloak swirling
about him. Unbidden, his mind conjured up the
hardwood stake as clearly as though it were with him
now instead of far in the past, the stake and the chains
pressing him cruelly back against it, his hands bound
so he couldn't gesture, his mouth sealed with a wooden
gag so he couldn't call out the slightest spell, and the
flames crackling at the wood beneath him, the heat
already starting to eat at his feet, his legs...
Alatan spat out a savage curse, forcing his mind back
to the present. It was done, he was safe, and he should
have banished such ridiculous memories long ago!
The sorcerer resumed his angry padng. What non-
sense this was! He had seen and done and summoned
horrors enough during his career, horrors that would
have sent any other man screaming  aye, and he'd
154 Mercedes Lackey ^josepha Sheman
seen many of those horrors do him homage, too. He
would not act like some raw boy haunted by his own
mind!
Ah, no. Fear wasn't the problem. What truly rankled,
what stayed in his mind after all this rime was having to
admit chat for all his Power, he hadn't been able to do a
thing to save himself. Oh no, ifCarlotta hadn't chanced to
see what was happening, chose stupid, fearful peasants
would have won and he would be ashes in the wind, spirit
lost in the Outer Dark. If she hadn't seen, and thought,
and realized what a fine tool was about to be lost 
"Damn her," Alatan repeated aloud, but by now
most of the anger was gone from his voice. A tool he
was, and a tool he would remain till the debt of his life
was repaid. No successful sorcerer survived by denying
What Must Be. And he dare not fail.
Grimly resigned, Alatan went down from the ram-
parts to his private chambers, to a dark room crowded
with sorcerous implements. A few careful Words of
Power sparked a silver-rimmed scrying mirror into life.
Alatan focused his will, bringing into sharp focus an
image of the boy, the bardling, and those with whom he
rode- A woman... a warrior by the lithe look other...
and quite human. He smiled coldly. No threat there.
The others .. . The sorcerer's mouth tightened. A
White Elf, that one, but again, a warrior, not a mage.
And again, no threat to him. But that other Figure,
draped all in black ... Alatan frowned and leaned for-
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ward, staring. Whoever, whatever was shrouded under [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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