Read Online Lords of Rainbow by Vera Nazarian - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Vera Nazarian
Ads: Link
faces that frightened her with their presence. She looked and she even blushed at the revealing anatomy of some masculine forms—something that a young female of her station was expressly forbidden to be aware of, under normal circumstances.
They are so beautiful , she thought, all of them. While I am like dust before them. Like those chips of rock, lying at the base of the statues .
And filled with momentary sad wistfulness—the only thing that came to intrude upon this day of happiness—she sometimes said to her father, “Sir . . . do you love those beautiful things you make? Do you?”
“ Yes,” he said. “More than life itself.”
“ More than me, sir, Father? I am not at all like them, they are so beautiful and perfect.”
And the Master Sculptor’s eyes grew dark suddenly, intense with a pain that was only half-tangible. “No!” he whispered. “Never more than you. You are my only love, Imogenn.”
And sometimes he gave her a quick hard embrace, until her head reeled with joy again. Indeed, she asked that question of him often, just to see that pain, and then just to receive the embrace like a sea of warmth. No one had ever embraced her like that, so intensely, so truthfully. She would remember it always.
When the visit ended, he took her back, walking quickly, and his eyes seemed darker than at the beginning of the day. Quickly, half-running, she came along, as they left the Quarter, passed the Markets, and strode along a bridge over the Arata. Sometimes, late in the day, a light rain came, sprinkling them like dew, as they passed through Outer Dirvan , to where the Olvan Villa stood in old eminence. There, at the gates, she was received by her mother’s servants, impersonally, and hurried within.
Her father was always left standing outside, rain on his hair, as though at a loss for words, yet proud in his silence. Only the look of his eyes said true good-bye to her, for he knew she would recognize that better than words.
And she would not see him until the next time, months and months later. Truly, Imogenn was aware of her age, kept track of it, only through those solitary yearly visits. Everything else was a dream of monotony and stolid pale silver. And she herself was as bland and monotonous as her existence.
Her father’s visits were always unannounced, unexpected, and somehow it made them more miraculous than if they were to have a regular yearly date set. Imogenn lived each day subconsciously expecting him to appear and wonderfully disrupt her life.
Counting by his visits, Imogenn thus grew to be sixteen summers and sixteen winters. Bland, small, shadowlike, she grew up half-noticed, into an insipid shade of a budding young woman. No one had ever predicted to her that she would be anything but what she was, ordinary and unbeautiful.
And only her father, the intimate stranger, had told her that one day, he saw it in her—as he saw future images of grace and perfection in hunks of granite—he saw her as the most beautiful, most unexpected jewel in Dirvan ’s any given season.
Finally, the Family Olvan would bear a fine delicate blossom on its proper and ordinary tree.
A blossom fit for a king.
* * *
T he carriage rolled like a ship in the darkness, so they could feel each bump on the forest path, each little stone.
Inside, Lixa Beis held on to the cushioned door handle with a bloodless grip of desperation.
She was in hell. Hell, and ripping darkness, and screams of assassins reverberating in her mind. Eventually hell must end. Rather, one kind of hell would supplant another.
Soon.
It was said that Lixa Beis had the shadow of red , the Beis color , in her hair. Supposedly, such “ coloration ” was observed under the most powerful near- white monochrome in the City, with all her relations attesting to the fact.
Indeed, professing an ability to perceive color where there was none was a quaint tradition at Dirvan , akin to divination. Often noble children of a certain
They are so beautiful , she thought, all of them. While I am like dust before them. Like those chips of rock, lying at the base of the statues .
And filled with momentary sad wistfulness—the only thing that came to intrude upon this day of happiness—she sometimes said to her father, “Sir . . . do you love those beautiful things you make? Do you?”
“ Yes,” he said. “More than life itself.”
“ More than me, sir, Father? I am not at all like them, they are so beautiful and perfect.”
And the Master Sculptor’s eyes grew dark suddenly, intense with a pain that was only half-tangible. “No!” he whispered. “Never more than you. You are my only love, Imogenn.”
And sometimes he gave her a quick hard embrace, until her head reeled with joy again. Indeed, she asked that question of him often, just to see that pain, and then just to receive the embrace like a sea of warmth. No one had ever embraced her like that, so intensely, so truthfully. She would remember it always.
When the visit ended, he took her back, walking quickly, and his eyes seemed darker than at the beginning of the day. Quickly, half-running, she came along, as they left the Quarter, passed the Markets, and strode along a bridge over the Arata. Sometimes, late in the day, a light rain came, sprinkling them like dew, as they passed through Outer Dirvan , to where the Olvan Villa stood in old eminence. There, at the gates, she was received by her mother’s servants, impersonally, and hurried within.
Her father was always left standing outside, rain on his hair, as though at a loss for words, yet proud in his silence. Only the look of his eyes said true good-bye to her, for he knew she would recognize that better than words.
And she would not see him until the next time, months and months later. Truly, Imogenn was aware of her age, kept track of it, only through those solitary yearly visits. Everything else was a dream of monotony and stolid pale silver. And she herself was as bland and monotonous as her existence.
Her father’s visits were always unannounced, unexpected, and somehow it made them more miraculous than if they were to have a regular yearly date set. Imogenn lived each day subconsciously expecting him to appear and wonderfully disrupt her life.
Counting by his visits, Imogenn thus grew to be sixteen summers and sixteen winters. Bland, small, shadowlike, she grew up half-noticed, into an insipid shade of a budding young woman. No one had ever predicted to her that she would be anything but what she was, ordinary and unbeautiful.
And only her father, the intimate stranger, had told her that one day, he saw it in her—as he saw future images of grace and perfection in hunks of granite—he saw her as the most beautiful, most unexpected jewel in Dirvan ’s any given season.
Finally, the Family Olvan would bear a fine delicate blossom on its proper and ordinary tree.
A blossom fit for a king.
* * *
T he carriage rolled like a ship in the darkness, so they could feel each bump on the forest path, each little stone.
Inside, Lixa Beis held on to the cushioned door handle with a bloodless grip of desperation.
She was in hell. Hell, and ripping darkness, and screams of assassins reverberating in her mind. Eventually hell must end. Rather, one kind of hell would supplant another.
Soon.
It was said that Lixa Beis had the shadow of red , the Beis color , in her hair. Supposedly, such “ coloration ” was observed under the most powerful near- white monochrome in the City, with all her relations attesting to the fact.
Indeed, professing an ability to perceive color where there was none was a quaint tradition at Dirvan , akin to divination. Often noble children of a certain
Similar Books
