product of a world six million years removed from the Pliocene Suwanee estuary. Tapered, balanced, and irreplaceable, subtly armored in the trace against the tarpon's steely jaws. it merged to a vulnerable 6.?5-kilo test tippet that gave the fish an almost overwhelming sporting advantage over the angler. To catch even the least of those splendid brutes on a flyrod with such a gossamer thread (and without using any metapsychic force, that went without saying!) was a supreme achievement. But this season, he intended to aim beyond supremacy toward the ultimate. He was going to take one of the Old Ones, the glittering leviathans of the tarpon clan that approached four meters in length and nearly three hundred kilos in weight. He was going to bring in one of those fish on the frail tine, with his homemade fly rod I can do it, he told himself, smiling the attractive one-sided smile One old monster against another.
The farsense of the children slid over him again. Closing his mind to every other input. Marc Remillard settled down m the skiff in the sunshine, waiting for his prey.
3
IN GORIAH, AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE MOON WAS DOWN,the cloud cover broke along the Bntlany shore and the meteors of March appeared in all their splendor. In a fit of playfulness, Aiken Drum ordered the lights in the city to be extinguished and had Mercy roused from sleep and brought to where he waited on a narrow parapet surmounting the highest spire of the Castle of Glass.
She stepped out into the amazing night and cned, "Ah!"
Spraying among the western constellations were countless arching white sparks, and larger meteors with lucent silver tails, and occasional orange fireballs slashing the sky with bold strokes of afterglow. All of them rushed outward from a tight central focus like spokes in a starry wheel, or petals unfurling endlessly from some astral chrysanthemum. The meteors flew over the heads of Aiken and Mercy and dived behind the mass of Breton Island across the strait. Some of them quenched themselves in the black sea. The night was filled with a faint rustling sound, like ethereal whispering.
"For you!" Aiken exclaimed magniloquently, compassing the spectacle with a possessive sweep of his hand. "One of my more modest productions, but still worthy of a Tanu queen!"
Laughing, she came to him. "Not yet a queen, my shining braggart, in spite of all your saucy promises. But the starshower is lovely, not that I believe for a moment that you caused it "
"Doubting me again, woman^" The small man in the gleaming suit all covered with pockets lifted both arms A dozen of the meteors seemed to plummet straight down at him, emitting a scorching hiss, and shrink to form a coronet of white lights that scintillated insanely He held it out to her with a triumphant gnn "I crown you Queen of the Many-Colored Land'"
"Illusions'" she cned "that for your shifty love-gift. Lord Lugonn Alken Drum'" She snapped her fingers at me starry diadem and it died to embers, sifting through Alken's hands like dwindling coais through a grate But as his face fell she suddenly smiled at him there in the blazing darkness, making his heart heel half-seas over
"But I do love the real meteors, and you're a dear trickster to have called me out to see them "
She kissed him full and long, with her wild eyes wide open, and while he was disarmed and his mind-shields awry, she caught him unprepared with a redactive probe
"You do love me'" she exclaimed
"The hell I do!" He mustered his defenses, reasserting selfcontrol, trying to escape her mental scrutiny without hurting her The great metapsychic faculties that had continued to grow throughout the winter months, those powers that had evoked admiring subservience or sullen awe from the surviving Tanu Great Ones, failed before Mercy-Rosmar "I don't love you'" his mind and voice protested "It isn't necessary "
Her memment bubbled up "Necessary? But you'd take my pleasure-gifts, wouldn't you, love or not, you archdeceiver' And
The farsense of the children slid over him again. Closing his mind to every other input. Marc Remillard settled down m the skiff in the sunshine, waiting for his prey.
3
IN GORIAH, AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE MOON WAS DOWN,the cloud cover broke along the Bntlany shore and the meteors of March appeared in all their splendor. In a fit of playfulness, Aiken Drum ordered the lights in the city to be extinguished and had Mercy roused from sleep and brought to where he waited on a narrow parapet surmounting the highest spire of the Castle of Glass.
She stepped out into the amazing night and cned, "Ah!"
Spraying among the western constellations were countless arching white sparks, and larger meteors with lucent silver tails, and occasional orange fireballs slashing the sky with bold strokes of afterglow. All of them rushed outward from a tight central focus like spokes in a starry wheel, or petals unfurling endlessly from some astral chrysanthemum. The meteors flew over the heads of Aiken and Mercy and dived behind the mass of Breton Island across the strait. Some of them quenched themselves in the black sea. The night was filled with a faint rustling sound, like ethereal whispering.
"For you!" Aiken exclaimed magniloquently, compassing the spectacle with a possessive sweep of his hand. "One of my more modest productions, but still worthy of a Tanu queen!"
Laughing, she came to him. "Not yet a queen, my shining braggart, in spite of all your saucy promises. But the starshower is lovely, not that I believe for a moment that you caused it "
"Doubting me again, woman^" The small man in the gleaming suit all covered with pockets lifted both arms A dozen of the meteors seemed to plummet straight down at him, emitting a scorching hiss, and shrink to form a coronet of white lights that scintillated insanely He held it out to her with a triumphant gnn "I crown you Queen of the Many-Colored Land'"
"Illusions'" she cned "that for your shifty love-gift. Lord Lugonn Alken Drum'" She snapped her fingers at me starry diadem and it died to embers, sifting through Alken's hands like dwindling coais through a grate But as his face fell she suddenly smiled at him there in the blazing darkness, making his heart heel half-seas over
"But I do love the real meteors, and you're a dear trickster to have called me out to see them "
She kissed him full and long, with her wild eyes wide open, and while he was disarmed and his mind-shields awry, she caught him unprepared with a redactive probe
"You do love me'" she exclaimed
"The hell I do!" He mustered his defenses, reasserting selfcontrol, trying to escape her mental scrutiny without hurting her The great metapsychic faculties that had continued to grow throughout the winter months, those powers that had evoked admiring subservience or sullen awe from the surviving Tanu Great Ones, failed before Mercy-Rosmar "I don't love you'" his mind and voice protested "It isn't necessary "
Her memment bubbled up "Necessary? But you'd take my pleasure-gifts, wouldn't you, love or not, you archdeceiver' And
Similar Books
