where the Wind-Walker was concerned. This was ill-omen indeed!
Armandra gave them no more time for speculation, however, for 'There!' she continued, giving a curt nod of satisfaction. Now I have shut him out, whose greatest desire is to know our every secret. And now I may converse with the small, friendly winds that wander all the starlanes. Not the mighty whirlwinds of time and space, spawned in the great holes and angles of existence, but their little cousins who play in the vasty voids, whose wanderings have taken them every where and when ...'
For a moment she was silent, breathing deeply, her brow furrowed in concentration; but then her face lightened, she smiled strangely, her right hand lifted and beckoned. 'Come then, little wind. Come talk to Armandra, and tell her of your travels. And speak, if you will, of the ways of Elysia and the roads that lead there.'
Her eyes remained closed but her burning hair stirred eerily, apparently of its own accord, and began to drift up weightless from her alabaster neck and shoulders. The fur of her jacket grew ruffled, as by a breeze, and her smile became broader at some small secret she alone heard whispered. And:
This one has returned from Arcturus,' she said, 'where ten thousand ice-planets whirled about a frozen hollow sun.
And so fragile that great frozen star, that when be ventured inside and blew about its icicles and brittle stalactites, all crumbled and fell in and shattered into shards and motes of ice. And when the frozen sun collapsed, so its many worlds, released like shots from a sling, went bounding off into space to seek new suns; and so this small wind is very likely a father of future worlds! So he says, but I think it a clever fantasy, with which he hopes to please me. As for Elysia: there lies the fable, he says, for never did he talk to a wind who ever ventured there.'
Her smile faded a little as she slowly cocked her head to allow a very small breeze to rest a moment like a kitten in the crook of her neck. Invisible, that. ether-gust, but it smoothed out the ruffled fur of her collar and caused her copper hair to billow there. 'And this one is sad,' she said, 'for he lost his brothers in the maw of a black hole, where they strayed too close to its rim. Now they are sucked through the hole to some other place far removed, and he fears he'll never more gust with them out in the stars we know. He supposes they might just possibly have found their way into Elysia — whereof he's heard it said that all the winds are fair — but alas, of the location of that place he can tell me nothing.'
And so it went: the ether winds came and departed at her bidding, breezes and breaths, puffs and pants, gusts and gasps of wind come to talk to Armandra. She spoke with bitter winds from the deepest regions of space, and Others warmed by the exhalations of suns where they'd played. There were winds born in the mountains of green worlds on balmy summer evenings, and others whose worlds were dead now and mourned their passing as winds do. Infant breezes there were, and soughing winds almost as old as time, and all of them with their own tales to tell.
Until at the last, and just as de Mafigny began to despair of ever hearing anything useful —
Ah!' sighed Armandra, clasping the arms of her throne and sitting up yet more regally erect. 'Now here's a rare wind indeed, and a frightened one at that!'
Hank Silberhutte grasped de Marigny's elbow, reminder that he was not merely lost in some impossible dream or hallucination. 'This might be just what you're looking for!' the ex-Texan whispered. thought she was beginning to flag, but now she's fully alive again — see ... !'
De Marigny saw. A faint bloom was suddenly visible on Armandra's pale cheeks, like the flush of some strange excitement. Some unseen thing a panicked gasp of air, perhaps — hid for a moment in a sleeve of her jacket, causing it to bell out, then burst free to rush round her head in a veritable frenzy of
Armandra gave them no more time for speculation, however, for 'There!' she continued, giving a curt nod of satisfaction. Now I have shut him out, whose greatest desire is to know our every secret. And now I may converse with the small, friendly winds that wander all the starlanes. Not the mighty whirlwinds of time and space, spawned in the great holes and angles of existence, but their little cousins who play in the vasty voids, whose wanderings have taken them every where and when ...'
For a moment she was silent, breathing deeply, her brow furrowed in concentration; but then her face lightened, she smiled strangely, her right hand lifted and beckoned. 'Come then, little wind. Come talk to Armandra, and tell her of your travels. And speak, if you will, of the ways of Elysia and the roads that lead there.'
Her eyes remained closed but her burning hair stirred eerily, apparently of its own accord, and began to drift up weightless from her alabaster neck and shoulders. The fur of her jacket grew ruffled, as by a breeze, and her smile became broader at some small secret she alone heard whispered. And:
This one has returned from Arcturus,' she said, 'where ten thousand ice-planets whirled about a frozen hollow sun.
And so fragile that great frozen star, that when be ventured inside and blew about its icicles and brittle stalactites, all crumbled and fell in and shattered into shards and motes of ice. And when the frozen sun collapsed, so its many worlds, released like shots from a sling, went bounding off into space to seek new suns; and so this small wind is very likely a father of future worlds! So he says, but I think it a clever fantasy, with which he hopes to please me. As for Elysia: there lies the fable, he says, for never did he talk to a wind who ever ventured there.'
Her smile faded a little as she slowly cocked her head to allow a very small breeze to rest a moment like a kitten in the crook of her neck. Invisible, that. ether-gust, but it smoothed out the ruffled fur of her collar and caused her copper hair to billow there. 'And this one is sad,' she said, 'for he lost his brothers in the maw of a black hole, where they strayed too close to its rim. Now they are sucked through the hole to some other place far removed, and he fears he'll never more gust with them out in the stars we know. He supposes they might just possibly have found their way into Elysia — whereof he's heard it said that all the winds are fair — but alas, of the location of that place he can tell me nothing.'
And so it went: the ether winds came and departed at her bidding, breezes and breaths, puffs and pants, gusts and gasps of wind come to talk to Armandra. She spoke with bitter winds from the deepest regions of space, and Others warmed by the exhalations of suns where they'd played. There were winds born in the mountains of green worlds on balmy summer evenings, and others whose worlds were dead now and mourned their passing as winds do. Infant breezes there were, and soughing winds almost as old as time, and all of them with their own tales to tell.
Until at the last, and just as de Mafigny began to despair of ever hearing anything useful —
Ah!' sighed Armandra, clasping the arms of her throne and sitting up yet more regally erect. 'Now here's a rare wind indeed, and a frightened one at that!'
Hank Silberhutte grasped de Marigny's elbow, reminder that he was not merely lost in some impossible dream or hallucination. 'This might be just what you're looking for!' the ex-Texan whispered. thought she was beginning to flag, but now she's fully alive again — see ... !'
De Marigny saw. A faint bloom was suddenly visible on Armandra's pale cheeks, like the flush of some strange excitement. Some unseen thing a panicked gasp of air, perhaps — hid for a moment in a sleeve of her jacket, causing it to bell out, then burst free to rush round her head in a veritable frenzy of
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