Laurell K. Hamilton Death Of A Darklord

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hope. He knew that, but it was good to be reminded.
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TWENTY-SEVEN
Gersalius led Elaine out into the street. They had found her another cloak. It
was brown and stiff, but warm enough. It wasn't until she was outside that she
realized she hadn't taken time to clean off the blood. Gersalius had offered
her breakfast, but she had refused; though she felt light and empty, it wasn't
food she needed. What she needed was to see Blaine's face, hear his voice,
feel the touch of his hand.
She needed his death to not be true.
Konrad had hugged her. The softness in his face that she had always longed to
see was finally there.
What would Blaine have thought? Would he have been happy for her? Or would he
have been jealous?
She would have given up Konrad's newfound love, if that was what it was, to
have Blaine back.
Konrad returned her feelings, at last, and it was ashes in her heart. She
walked down the snow-covered street. The cold air touched her face. There was
a hood on the borrowed cloak, but Elaine left it down.
She wanted to feel the cold on her face. Her hair fell unbound round her
shoulders. She hadn't even thought to tie it back. It was so like Blaine's
hair. She would see a shadow of him in every mirror for the rest of her life.
Gersalius led her to the town square. There was a fountain in the middle of
the paved area, and the water within it had frozen to solid white ice. The ice
coated even the figure in the center, making it unrecognizable, though a thin
trickle of water still played through the ice. The soft sound of water moved
oddly through the silent courtyard, echoing off the two-story buildings that
hedged the paving.
"It was a large town once. This is the center of an ambitious town," Gersalius
said.
Elaine stood by the frozen fountain and let her breath out in a white cloud.
Huge fluffy clouds hung low in the sky, pale gray, as if they held not snow
but rain. But it was far too cold for rain.
The gray clouds cast everything in a sameness. The day was as dull and
downtrodden as her mood.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Gersalius turned to her. His smile died as he looked at her. "I know that
right now you won't believe this, but it will hurt less as time goes by."
She shook her head. "Why are we here?"
"This is the heart of the town. It wasn't the first thing built, but it was
the center of all their hopes. A
fountain in a courtyard, very cosmopolitan. This is the heart of the village,
and here is where the spell was laid."
Elaine looked around. "I don't see anything."
"Look at the fountain, Elaine. Open that inner sight and truly look at it."
It seemed like such an effort that she wanted to say no, I can't.
"If we can trace this spell back to its owner, we will find the person
responsible for all this misery,"
Gersalius said. "Then you can have your revenge."
Vengeance, was that enough? No, nothing would ever be enough. But revenge was
better than despair.
Elaine took a deep breath of the frigid air and closed her eyes. She held the
breath, willing herself to be calm, to quiet the maelstrom in her mind. She
opened her eyes slowly. The fountain ran with colors, as if someone had melted
wax in the water before it froze.
Elaine brushed her hands over the ice. A line of sickly green, red the color
of burned skin, the purple-blue of bruises; one line was iridescent, with many
colors. Elaine couldn't decipher it at first, until she remember a drowned man
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she'd seen once. The last line was the color of a drowned man's skin, mottled
and putrefying.
The thin line of free water that still coursed through the ice picked up the
colors like a river picking up the dirt of different fields. The water ran
black as it pooled in icy pockets, deep enough to dip a small bucket into,
deep enough to drink from.
There was a thickness on the water's surface that held all the colors like an
oil slick, but sparkling with some inner light that had nothing to do with the
weak winter sunlight.
"He poisoned the water," she said, at last.
Gersalius nodded. "Indeed."
"Is it poison or magic? It gleams like a spell."
"Both," he said.
Elaine shook her head. "If it is in the water, then why does everybody rise
from the dead, even strangers?"
"Most strangers don't die as quickly as Averil and Blaine. Most have time to
drink the water before they die."
She turned to him. "Blaine won't rise as a zombie."
"No," Gersalius said.
"Will Averil?"
"I fear she was given water to bring down her fever."
Her relief that Blaine would rest now forever was spoiled by the thought of
Silvanus's having to watch his daughter become a shambling corpse.
"Then why take Elaine's body if he won't rise?" she asked.
"Perhaps exactly because it won't rise on its own."
"I don't understand."
"If only people who have not drunk of the water lie quiet in their graves, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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