Read Online The Pool of Two Moons by Kate Forsyth - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kate Forsyth
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Fantasy fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fantasy, Contemporary, Juvenile Fiction, Magic, Witches, Epic, Fantasy - Epic, Fantasy - Series, Occult, Paperback Collection, australian
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out of the forest, her mouth stained with berries, her reddish hair filled with leaves and twigs. "Ye look like a tree-changer yourself!" her father laughed and picked her up and swung her around. "Ooof! Ye're getting too big to do that to!"
"I have no' grown at all!" Nina laughed. "Ye're just getting too fat!"
"Me? Fat? I'm in the prime o' my life!"
"If ye believe that ye have no' looked in a mirror lately," his mother said in her melodious voice. Snowy hair combed straight back from her wrinkled brown face, Enit limped painfully back to her caravan. Lilanthe had not yet met Dide's grandmother, for the old jongleur could not walk easily, crippled with a twisting of her bones that made her fingers look like knobby twigs. She rarely moved more than a few paces from her caravan and guarded its interior jealously.
"Dide!" Morrell cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed his son's name loudly. "Where in hell's bells are ye?"
"Here, Da! I was just looking for Lilanthe, to tell her the other jongleurs have gone at last . . . She's shielding, though. I canna find her."
Lilanthe crouched lower on the branch. She had been too long alone to give up her freedom lightly. They called for her, then harnessed the mares to the caravans. "Do no' worry, son," Morrell said. "I doubt she'll stop following us after all this time."
"Something may have happened to her. I wish she wouldna shield herself from me." Lilanthe smiled to herself. It was easy for her to think of trees and sky and wind and sunlight, the thoughts playing on the surface of her mind effectively hiding the thoughts below. It was much harder for humans, who had so little control over their thoughts and so little connection with the world around them. Even Dide, who was surprisingly good at it, was unable to shield as effectively as Lilanthe. She waited until the horses had plodded almost out of sight, then slipped out of the tree and began to follow them. Morrell's words had caused a brief smart of humiliation, but they were essentially true. Lilanthe had no intention of losing touch with the jongleurs.
It was some hours later that Lilanthe became aware of other minds brushing the edge of her awareness. Cautiously she cast her mind out, and encountered hunger, blood-lust, the hunters' impulse. They were not minds she had ever encountered before, though the thoughts were familiar, akin to the thoughts of a rat-catcher she remembered from her childhood, a man who set packs of rats upon dogs for the amusement of the villagers. Shuddering a little, Lilanthe increased her pace, deciding she should really stay a little closer to the caravans. She wondered if Dide could sense the minds as well, and was answered when he began to call for her, peering anxiously into the glades stretching on either side of the narrow road. She began to hurry forward, casting aside her shield.
Hurry! he thought. Danger coming!
Lilanthe ran as fast as she could, but the caravans were swinging out of sight. She felt the pursuit growing closer and swung round to face it, digging her bare feet into the soil. She felt the shiver of changing run over her, felt rather than saw them burst out of the woods and gallop towards her. There were seven of them, long-haired women with cloven hooves and horns of all different shapes. They wore short kilts of badly cured leather and necklaces of animal and human teeth that bounced against their three pairs of breasts. Down their spines grew a ridge of coarse, wiry hair that ended in a long, tufted tail. Hollering with vicious glee, they waved rough clubs made of wood and stone tied together with cord.
Lilanthe's torso stretched and twisted, her arms lengthening and diverging into slim white branches that dangled towards the ground. Her hair sprouted and grew into long trailers with tiny green flowers clustered along the stem.
They charged her, heads lowered, and she was grateful for her sturdy roots when one hard body after another crashed into her trunk,
"I have no' grown at all!" Nina laughed. "Ye're just getting too fat!"
"Me? Fat? I'm in the prime o' my life!"
"If ye believe that ye have no' looked in a mirror lately," his mother said in her melodious voice. Snowy hair combed straight back from her wrinkled brown face, Enit limped painfully back to her caravan. Lilanthe had not yet met Dide's grandmother, for the old jongleur could not walk easily, crippled with a twisting of her bones that made her fingers look like knobby twigs. She rarely moved more than a few paces from her caravan and guarded its interior jealously.
"Dide!" Morrell cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed his son's name loudly. "Where in hell's bells are ye?"
"Here, Da! I was just looking for Lilanthe, to tell her the other jongleurs have gone at last . . . She's shielding, though. I canna find her."
Lilanthe crouched lower on the branch. She had been too long alone to give up her freedom lightly. They called for her, then harnessed the mares to the caravans. "Do no' worry, son," Morrell said. "I doubt she'll stop following us after all this time."
"Something may have happened to her. I wish she wouldna shield herself from me." Lilanthe smiled to herself. It was easy for her to think of trees and sky and wind and sunlight, the thoughts playing on the surface of her mind effectively hiding the thoughts below. It was much harder for humans, who had so little control over their thoughts and so little connection with the world around them. Even Dide, who was surprisingly good at it, was unable to shield as effectively as Lilanthe. She waited until the horses had plodded almost out of sight, then slipped out of the tree and began to follow them. Morrell's words had caused a brief smart of humiliation, but they were essentially true. Lilanthe had no intention of losing touch with the jongleurs.
It was some hours later that Lilanthe became aware of other minds brushing the edge of her awareness. Cautiously she cast her mind out, and encountered hunger, blood-lust, the hunters' impulse. They were not minds she had ever encountered before, though the thoughts were familiar, akin to the thoughts of a rat-catcher she remembered from her childhood, a man who set packs of rats upon dogs for the amusement of the villagers. Shuddering a little, Lilanthe increased her pace, deciding she should really stay a little closer to the caravans. She wondered if Dide could sense the minds as well, and was answered when he began to call for her, peering anxiously into the glades stretching on either side of the narrow road. She began to hurry forward, casting aside her shield.
Hurry! he thought. Danger coming!
Lilanthe ran as fast as she could, but the caravans were swinging out of sight. She felt the pursuit growing closer and swung round to face it, digging her bare feet into the soil. She felt the shiver of changing run over her, felt rather than saw them burst out of the woods and gallop towards her. There were seven of them, long-haired women with cloven hooves and horns of all different shapes. They wore short kilts of badly cured leather and necklaces of animal and human teeth that bounced against their three pairs of breasts. Down their spines grew a ridge of coarse, wiry hair that ended in a long, tufted tail. Hollering with vicious glee, they waved rough clubs made of wood and stone tied together with cord.
Lilanthe's torso stretched and twisted, her arms lengthening and diverging into slim white branches that dangled towards the ground. Her hair sprouted and grew into long trailers with tiny green flowers clustered along the stem.
They charged her, heads lowered, and she was grateful for her sturdy roots when one hard body after another crashed into her trunk,
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