Read Online Mother of Winter by Barbara Hambly - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Barbara Hambly
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happiness again.
Though she had spoken to him of the dreams, of the terrible urgings that swamped her mind, he had refused to bind her hands. “You may need your weapons, my dear, at any moment,” he had said. “And I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” They were standing under the dying sycamore tree in the courtyard where she had first been attacked, looking down at the ripped sack that lay on the ground. It contained what little was left of the thing that had attacked her, torn down and chewed by vermin as if no spells had been placed upon it, as if no Wards had ringed the tree.
“Then I trust myself,” he had said, picking up the maggoty hindquarter and stowing it—and the remains of the original bag—in another sack pulled from Yoshabel’s numerous packs. “Whatever it is that is driving you to assault me, if it can quicken your timing and get you out of the lamentable habit of telegraphing your side lunges, I’d like to meet it.”
He’d smiled at her—with Ingold as one of her sword-masters, she could take on almost any of the other Guards and win—and Gil responded to his teasing with a grin and a flick at him with the pack rope. Even that small and playful assault he’d sidestepped as effortlessly, she knew, as he would have avoided a lethal blow.
“Thoth?” she heard Ingold say softly now. “Thoth, can you hear me? Are you there?”
She turned her head and looked. A slice of amber light lay across one scarred eyelid and down his cheekbone, refracted from the crystal in his hand. His brows, down-drawn in a bristle of fire-flecked shadow, masked the sockets of his eyes.
“Has that ever happened before?” she asked. “Before last week, I mean?”
He raised his head, startled. “I’m sorry, my dear, did I wake you? No,” he answered her question, when she signed that it didn’t matter. “And the troubling thing is, I’ve frequently had the sensation that Thoth—or one of the other Gettlesandwizards—is trying to signal me, but for some reason cannot get through.”
He got up from his place by the fire, crossed the room to her, a matter of two or three steps only. The former library was one of the few remaining chambers with four walls and a roof, though the wooden latticework of the three wide windows had been broken out. Wickering ember-light revived the velvety crimson memory of the frescoes on the wall, lent renewed color to the faces of those attenuated ghosts acting out scenes from a once-popular romance.
She curved her body a little to make room, and Ingold sat beside her, still turning the crystal in his hand. “I had hoped,” he went on quietly, “that if Rudy could get through to me I would be able to get through to Thoth, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s only a deep sense of … of pressure, of heat, like a river far beneath the earth. Like a rope pulled taut and about to snap.” He put the crystal away and sat silent for a time, gazing at the broken window bars and toying one-fingered with a corner of his beard.
“What did Rudy have to say?”
Ingold told her. At his description of the thing Rudy called a gaboogoo, she was seized with the flashing sensation of familiarity, a tip-of-the-tongue impression that she had seen such a thing, or dreamed about it, but the next instant it was gone. Her dreams had been strange, and even deeper than the urge to hurt Ingold, to destroy him, was the reluctance to speak to him of the things she saw in them … And indeed, when she tried to frame those bleak, fungoid landscapes of pillowlike vegetation, the amorphous, shining shapes that writhed through it or flopped heavily a few feet above its surface, the very memory of those visions dissolved and she couldn’t recall what it was that she had seen.
And so it happened here. When Ingold paused, raising his eyebrows at her intaken breath, her words jammed in her throat, like a stutter, or like tears that refused to be wept, and she could not remember whether
Though she had spoken to him of the dreams, of the terrible urgings that swamped her mind, he had refused to bind her hands. “You may need your weapons, my dear, at any moment,” he had said. “And I trust you.”
“You shouldn’t.” They were standing under the dying sycamore tree in the courtyard where she had first been attacked, looking down at the ripped sack that lay on the ground. It contained what little was left of the thing that had attacked her, torn down and chewed by vermin as if no spells had been placed upon it, as if no Wards had ringed the tree.
“Then I trust myself,” he had said, picking up the maggoty hindquarter and stowing it—and the remains of the original bag—in another sack pulled from Yoshabel’s numerous packs. “Whatever it is that is driving you to assault me, if it can quicken your timing and get you out of the lamentable habit of telegraphing your side lunges, I’d like to meet it.”
He’d smiled at her—with Ingold as one of her sword-masters, she could take on almost any of the other Guards and win—and Gil responded to his teasing with a grin and a flick at him with the pack rope. Even that small and playful assault he’d sidestepped as effortlessly, she knew, as he would have avoided a lethal blow.
“Thoth?” she heard Ingold say softly now. “Thoth, can you hear me? Are you there?”
She turned her head and looked. A slice of amber light lay across one scarred eyelid and down his cheekbone, refracted from the crystal in his hand. His brows, down-drawn in a bristle of fire-flecked shadow, masked the sockets of his eyes.
“Has that ever happened before?” she asked. “Before last week, I mean?”
He raised his head, startled. “I’m sorry, my dear, did I wake you? No,” he answered her question, when she signed that it didn’t matter. “And the troubling thing is, I’ve frequently had the sensation that Thoth—or one of the other Gettlesandwizards—is trying to signal me, but for some reason cannot get through.”
He got up from his place by the fire, crossed the room to her, a matter of two or three steps only. The former library was one of the few remaining chambers with four walls and a roof, though the wooden latticework of the three wide windows had been broken out. Wickering ember-light revived the velvety crimson memory of the frescoes on the wall, lent renewed color to the faces of those attenuated ghosts acting out scenes from a once-popular romance.
She curved her body a little to make room, and Ingold sat beside her, still turning the crystal in his hand. “I had hoped,” he went on quietly, “that if Rudy could get through to me I would be able to get through to Thoth, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s only a deep sense of … of pressure, of heat, like a river far beneath the earth. Like a rope pulled taut and about to snap.” He put the crystal away and sat silent for a time, gazing at the broken window bars and toying one-fingered with a corner of his beard.
“What did Rudy have to say?”
Ingold told her. At his description of the thing Rudy called a gaboogoo, she was seized with the flashing sensation of familiarity, a tip-of-the-tongue impression that she had seen such a thing, or dreamed about it, but the next instant it was gone. Her dreams had been strange, and even deeper than the urge to hurt Ingold, to destroy him, was the reluctance to speak to him of the things she saw in them … And indeed, when she tried to frame those bleak, fungoid landscapes of pillowlike vegetation, the amorphous, shining shapes that writhed through it or flopped heavily a few feet above its surface, the very memory of those visions dissolved and she couldn’t recall what it was that she had seen.
And so it happened here. When Ingold paused, raising his eyebrows at her intaken breath, her words jammed in her throat, like a stutter, or like tears that refused to be wept, and she could not remember whether
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