09 - The Lost Years by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 1996-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

It was the twilight before the true dawn, and the tumbling moon was already reduced to a pale stain of a disc high in the amethyst sky over Sunside. Soon the furnace sun would be up, but it wouldn’t find Radu wanting. For by now his photophobia was full fledged; he knew that direct undiluted sunlight would kill him, even if he still didn’t understand the reason.

But no sooner was he settled in the back of a shallow cave, where a single stratum of soft rock had weathered out from the face of the cliff, than he heard a panting and scrabbling from beyond the rim of his shelter. It was a man in full flight, exhausted from his exertions and hoarse from the terror of pursuit. Dried up and beginning to blister even in the first faint rays from the southern horizon, he came stumbling, croaking his relief, into Radu’s cave.

Hidden in a dark corner, Radu shielded the luminous yellow glare of his eyes and waited until the man—a ragged-looking Sunsider, possibly a loner—had himself under partial control at least. And when the other’s panting had slowed and his whimpering ceased, then, speaking softly, Radu asked: “Who pursues you, and why?”

At the first word the other had jumped a foot, gasped out loud, spun about where he sat upon the dusty floor. “What?” he croaked. “Who?” And then he saw Radu’s eyes, and the dark shape of a man sprawled on a bed of heather in the back of the cave. Radu’s crossbow was loaded; aiming it at the man, he eased himself erect—or partly erect, because of the low ceiling—and went to where the newcomer cringed against the wall of the cave. The man seemed speechless; his throat throbbed and his Adam’s apple went up and down, but he merely gurgled. And finally he pointed at Radu’s face, at his eyes.

“Eh?” Radu growled, rapidly losing his patience. He wanted to know what was going on here. If this man was a fugitive, he wanted to know why, from what cause. “Are you deaf or daft, or both? I asked why are you running?”

“Y-you, ask that?” Finally the other had found his voice.

And perhaps Radu understood at that. He narrowed his feral eyes, sniffed his suspicion. “Are you a Ferenczy, is that it? Have you heard about me and what I’ve done, and what I’ll do!” He pointed his crossbow direct at the other’s throat. But even in the act of speaking the words, he knew he was mistaken. The Ferenczys had become an obsession with him, that was all.

“A F-Ferenczy?” The fugitive frowned. “No, I’m a Romani—Bela Romani, of the Szgany Mirlu. Or I was …” And now the sob was back in his voice.

“Are you an outcast then? What, a leper?” The Zirescus had used to banish anyone even suspected of leprosy. And they’d put a bolt through him and burn his body if he tried to return!

“Leprosy?” The other looked at Radu through haggard, red-rimmed eyes. “Ah, no.

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