Read Online Delerium's Mistress: Tales of the Flat Earth Book 4 by Tanith Lee - Free Book Online Page A

the
waters of her blue eyes turned to sapphires as they met the soil of earth; she
wept corundum. But perhaps after all she only wept tears.
    Oloru came to her then,
and now he wore a damson mantle, into which he gathered her. He kissed her eyes
again, wet with tears or sapphires.
    “Here in the
world, my own gifts are rapidly leaving me,” he said. “But for now—”
    The mantle flared
its wings with the sun caught in one of them, and, as it seemed, a horde of
stars.
    And the hillside was
vacant.
     
    5
     
    THE SAME SUN it was which rose behind the widow’s
house. The scene it gilded there was less impassioned, to begin with.
    Out in the
courtyard lay the rioters, in all the attitudes of riot’s aftermath. In the
forest over the way, the birds woke and sang, but those who woke in the yard
were not inclined to copy them. They held their heads or their bellies, called
for medicine or for more drink. Some had the temerity to call also for their
lord, Lak Hezoor. When none vouchsafed a reply, these noble courtiers began to
beat on the house doors and windows. They croaked or bellowed that they feared
their patron had come to some harm, injuring himself in scaling, maybe, the
obdurate icy breast of a virgin.
    Now it seemed to
them that they had every excuse—the security of their prince—for breaking into
the house. Already they were cheered by the prospect. Then came a new burst of
singing.
    The song was
alien to the morning, yet age-old as the tribulations of men.
    The courtiers
dropped back when they heard it. They clutched each other and asked: “What can
that be?” Though they knew very surely it was one demented, who shrieked and
moaned. So accordingly they said, “It is just that Oloru, trying to unsettle
us.”
    Just then the shutters
of an upper room flew open.
    A man appeared
there in the window. For some seconds they did not, any of them, know him. His
countenance was twisted, his eyes showed only the white balls, his mouth gaped
and blood ran from it where the tongue had been bitten. His whole body seemed
streaked by bloody hurts, and as they watched appalled, he clawed and scrabbled
at himself, causing fresh injuries with his nails, or turning to bite himself
on the shoulders or arms. They were loath to recognize this beast. It was only
the sable hair, though he tore it out in handfuls, that told them this was Lak
Hezoor.
    Gray-faced, the
men in the courtyard one by one took note, and stepped away backward. Some ran
to their horses and bolted almost at once. The others shook in their shoes and
stuttered. One dared to call again his master’s name—at which the apparition in
the window screeched more raucously, and, hauling and wrenching itself
through, commenced to crawl toward the courtyard down the stones of the wall.
    At this every man
there turned tail. Lak had gone mad, and plainly, if he caught hold of any one
of them, he would pull him in bits.
    Cacophonously as
they had arrived, therefore, Lak’s court departed, trampling each other
underhoof.
    Somewhere along
the city road, though it is not recounted where, those that could held
conference together, and decided what story to offer in the city. They had
determined by then that Oloru and his family were mighty sorcerers, mightier
far than Lak, demonstrably, since they had dealt with him as had been
witnessed. It would thus be preferable not to refer to Oloru’s house, to Oloru,
or to Oloru’s relations. What could mere mortals do against them? (For there
was another thing, which they had not properly grasped in the panic, but
recollected now—those especial servitors and guards that Lak had kept about
him, not one had gone to his aid. Rather, they had stayed like
statues. . . .) If such as these had not been able to assist, it
was best for ordinary men to leave well alone.
    For Lak himself,
one last rider swore he had seen his erstwhile prince, foaming at the lips and
tearing himself, proceed into the forest at a lurching run. What else