The Far Side Of Forever Part 59

raging inside her plain in her body and face. "Eppan, if .^yottlove me you have to kill her!"

'"Even if I hadn't been holding the spell I wouldn't have known what she was talking about, and then I caught a movement in the shadows to my left, just out of the comer of my eye. The movement came again and then the figure of a man appeared, stepping out of the shadows he'd apparently been in all along. He was a very big man, roughly dressed in homespun and worn boots, not the least sense of Sight about him, his long face in need of a shave.

As he moved closer to a candle I could see the way he looked at the woman, with adoration and overpowering love, and then I saw him turn his head to me. A snarl of rage took him as he quickly drew a knife from his belt, and then he was moving toward me with deliberation, his intention clear.

"Kill her and I'm yours, Eppan!" the woman urged, pulling at the collar of her riding habit. "I won't leave you behind to guard my escape, I'll take you with me! Kill her before she kills me!"

The maa paused to throw a look of ecstacy over his shoulder before continuing on, and the cold that had begun its climb in me earlier completed*the journey. Everything 1 bad was wrapped up in holding that spell around the woman, and that included what usually maintained my personal defenses; if I tried to protect myself from the man with the knife, I would lose my hold on the woman. If I lost my hold 1 would never get it back again, but if I just stood there he would kill me. My head was whirling with the effort I was making and my mouth was dry with the fear of death, but the woman was gasping inside the sphere, as though it was air being pushed out instead of magic, and that meant I coul< p="">

And men a flash of rust-colored leather went past me, thudding into the big man and knocking him backward.

They hit the floor together, the two of them, two big men fighting for the possession of a knife, and I couldn't quite

370.

hear the scuffling of their struggle through the ringing in my ears. The woman in the sphere was on her knees, her face showing that she was trying to scream, her hands tearing at her throat. I began to feel the lack of air myself then, my lungs already starting to labor, my hand to my mouth to keep the illness from spilling out. and men the woman in the sphere winked out of existence-and so did

CHAPTER 15.

I came awake and stretched luxuriously, really enjoying the comfort around me, no longer tired but feeling too lazy to make any more of an effort. Stretching was just about the only effort I was up to right then, an effortless effort, no magic needed, nothing but-

Magic! And effort' Had 1 done it? Was it over?

"Never sit up that fast, child, it will make you dizzy,'*

Graythor said gently, leaving his'chair to come over to the bed 1 now sat in.'I was dizzy from sitting up so fast, but there were concerns a lot more important than that.

"What happened?" I asked with one hand to my head, the other to the empty place at my waist, almost afraid to voice the words. "Did I do it, or did she get the stone again? Graythor, tell me-!"

"Everything is fine, so just calm yourself," he soothed, sitting down on the edge of me bed to face me. "The balance stone is returned to its proper place, the upheavals are all but stopped, and every member of your quest com- panions.h.i.+p has survived to talk about me experience. A number of them were wounded in the last encounter, but I've seen to it that they're now fine."

"All but you," I said with the sudden wave of pained understanding was.h.i.+ng over me, putting one hand out to hesitantly touch his. "Oh. Uncle Graythor, I'm so sorry!

ff there had been any other way-!"

"No, now, don't start feeling sorry for doing what had

372.

to be done,'' he said as he took my hand in both of his, his sallow face serene but his dark eyes filled with the pain of eternity. "It was something I couldn't do for myself, Laciel child, so you had to do it for me. In the two days you've been asleep, I've come to terms with my feelings as completely as I ever will."

Which, from the look of him, didn't seem to be more than halfway, if that far. I took a tighter grip on one of his hands to make sure he didn't pull away-and to keep the contact for myself as well-and began to bring myself down from flapping.

"I've been sleeping for two days?" 1 asked, taking a deep breath. "In these same clothes? I knew I was drain- ing myself down to empty, but 1 didn't think it would take me that long to come back."

"It took as long as it had to, and if you hadn't needed the time, you would have awakened sooner," he said with a hint of his old, crooked smile, but then the lightness faded again. "You might as well ask now, you know.

Avoiding the issue and saving it for later won't make it the least bit easier."

"That's right," I said with a nod. "1 forgot you've had two whole days to adjust to the thing, so I don't suppose you'd mind telling me why. Nothing more complex than that, just why."

"Nothing more complex than that." he repeated with the faint smile back again, squeezing my hand once before letting it go. "I suppose what you're asking basically is a simple question. Why did I create her. The answer, just as simply, is that I was lonely."

I looked at him, not understanding, and the warmth I had always enjoyed in his eyes returned as he put a gentle hand to my face.

"Laciel, my very dear girl," he smiled. "While you were growing up my company was always a source of pleasure for you, a delicious event to be antic.i.p.ated, a delight while indulged in, a satisfying memory when over.

I was always 'Uncle' Graythor, and your unfeigned enthu- siasm was the bright spot of my life from the day it first began. You've grown to be an intelligent, capable woman

THE FAR SIDE OP FOREVER.

373.

and sorceress, but the one thing you're still unable to See ''IS that other people don't share your opinion of me."

"Living proof that even the Sighted can be short- Sighted," I said, making a rude sound to underscore my opinion. "And what about Morgiana? She's always felt close to you."

"Yes, she has," he conceded with a sober nod of his head. "She's been a close, true friend for more than a century, but please note the word 'friend'. Many, many years ago Morgiana fell in love, and when he died her love-the love of a woman for a man-died with him.

She's never been able to feel the same toward any other man, and that's what 1 found myself lonely for: the love of a woman for a man."

He rose from the bed and began to pace, his hands behind his back, his head down as he sought within him for answers to his own questions.

"It's far from easy being one of the most powerful wizards alive, Laciel," he murmured. "Most people fear you terribly, even those who are Sighted and should there- fore be less easily impressed. Those who claim to want to be your friend aren't always looking for friends.h.i.+p, and the time comes when it's no longer easy to distinguish between those who want no more tnan companions.h.i.+p, and those who do. There are people of normal appearance who ^ow to feel that way-consider how a man such as 1, an ugly, twisted man, might come to feel. I could easily have changed my looks, of course, but I'm afraid I'm a bit too proud to spend my life behind a lie.

"I discovered when I first became a wizard that there are always women available to the powerful, women who come willingly and with great eagerness, women who will remain with a man and give him everything he desires for what he is able to give them-or almost everything. The one thing they seldom, if ever, give is their heartfelt love, a thing of little value to many, a thing as precious as life to others. I reached a time when I could no longer bear the loneliness, when I felt I must have that heartfelt love or perish, and that was the time I became determined to do it.

I created a woman-but one who would be capable of loving a man such as I."

374.

"What do you mean, a man such as you?" I asked when he fell silent, standing in the middle of the room.

stanng down at his feet. "What I'm trying to say is, what specifically did you do to make yourself a love object for her? What did you have to specify to make her capable of loving you?"

"I specified that she be capable of loving ugliness," he answered in a tone that said he was stating the obvious, raising his eyes again to look at me. "She was absolutely magnificent, the most beautiful and complex thing I ever created, and at first she was wonderful to me. She loved me the way I'd always wanted to be loved, and we both were very happy-and then things began to change. The gifts 1 gave her dissatisfied her, the servants dissatisfied her, the house, the gardens, the sky! She began to take more pleasure in looking at herself than at anything else around her, and the-manner-she had somehow learned to adopt put everyone exposed to her at her mercy. I had meant to marry her, and introduce her at Conclave as having come from a far-distant world, but after she began to change I realized that I first needed to learn what had gone wrong with her. I pored over my notes, conducted dozens of experiments, even attempted to talk with her, but all to no avail. At last she-demanded something so-abominable-of me that I flatly refused to even con- sider it, and the next day she was gone with me balance stone. I should have followed after her myself, but I discovered that the thought of harming her was beyond me. Instead I gathered you and your quest companions, and even now, with the whole matter completely resolved, I still don't know what I did wrong."

"I'll bet I know," I said, inspiration creeping up on me and straightening me where 1 sat. "It's so obvious if you only look at it in the right way."

Graythor was looking at me rather wan it, and his expression was made up of blankness, surprise, a little confusion-and just a hint of reproach. It isn't usual for a sorceress to be able to See something a wizard can't, but that wasn't the sort of sight I'd been referring to.

"Uncle Graythor, do you remember teaching me about balance in magic?" I asked, secretly pleased to be able to

375.

.^lecture him about something. "You pointed out that that ^tlance was only an extension of the rest of nature, that balance always occurs even if we can't see it right away.

la order for you to create a woman capable of loving Ugliness, you also had to create one who hated beauty. I'm sure you weren't consciously aware of it when you devised your spell, but in order for nature to balance, it had to be that way,"