Read Online Tides of Darkness by Judith Tarr - Free Book Online Page B

gone. In concealing himself from the great guardian, he had concealed himself also from the Heart of the World.

SIX
    M ERIAN LEFT THE BOY TO SLEEP FOR PERHAPS TOO LONG. THERE was a great deal to do, and her mages, while willing to be obedient, lacked belief in the task. Even after she had let them see as much as she had seen, she still sensed the current of doubt and heard the murmur among them: “She’s a great mage, we all know that, but we also know that she is a living Gate. What if the Gate in her has driven her mad?”
    That murmur would grow if she loosed her grip on any of them. There were always doubters and naysayers; nor was every mage her friend, though she had ruled them since she was little more than a child. If she was wise, she would give up this foolishness and return to her palace, and let the emperor find his own way home. Had he not done so before, and more than once?

    But this was not the same. There was an urgency in her, a sense almost of desperation, as if there were no time left-as if each moment that she let pass, she wasted, without hope of replenishment. She must find the emperor; there was no hope otherwise.
    This was nothing that she could say to any of her mages. They were blind to it, and worse than blind.
    â€œIt could be said,” said Urziad from amid the Heartfire, “that you are deluded and we see the simple truth.”
    â€œMy old friend and frequent adversary,” she said, “so it could. Do you believe it?”
    â€œI believe that what you see terrifies you,” he said. “I dislike that you place your trust in a useless frippery of a boy.”
    â€œHe believes in what I see,” she said.
    â€œSurely that should tell you how well to trust it, and him.”
    â€œThe emperor also believes,” she said. “And before you tell me that he’s a senile old man who has been questionably sane from his youth, do recall that no mage now living can equal him.”
    â€œExcept you,” said Urziad.
    She shook that off, however true it might be. “I think this boy may be stronger than any of us imagines. He’s the hunting hound. I’m his huntsman. Will you see to it that there is a world for us to return to?”
    â€œI would prefer that you never left at all,” Urziad said.
    â€œSo would I,” she said. “But needs must. Be watchful, my friend.”
    â€œFor your sake,” Urziad said, “and for no other reason.”
    â€œGods grant it be enough.”
    Â 
    He vanished from the Heartfire. She stretched and sighed. There was no measure of time here, but in the world of the sun her forefather, the day had come and gone. It was deep night, almost dawn.
    The boy had had long enough to sleep. She went up to the room in which she had left him. He was sprawled on his face, perfectly still: the pose of one who had raised laziness to high art.

    She laid a hand on his shoulder to wake him, and gasped. He was rigid. The skin of his neck was cold.
    She heaved him onto his back. He was still breathing, shallowly. His face was grey-green, his eyes rolled up in his head.
    She hissed at the folly of the child. He had fallen into a mage-dream; it had swallowed him whole. And she, worse fool yet, had left him alone. She should have known what he would do.
    If there had been another mage to stand guard over her, she would have gone hunting him down the paths of his dream. But she was alone, and time was wasting. She flung him over her shoulder—grunting a little for he was not a light weight, but she was stronger than most men would have liked to know. She carried him out of the cell, down a passage and a stair, to a cavernous room in which glimmered a pool of everflowing water.
    The water was cold—icy. A flicker of magic could have warmed it, but she had no interest in his comfort. Quite the contrary. She stripped him of his clothes and dropped him unceremoniously into the pool.
    For a long moment she