A Handful of Men 1 - The Cutting Edge by Duncan Dave

Author:Duncan, Dave [Duncan, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-03T23:21:57+00:00

8

Inos marched into the parlor and shut the door. The fire had shrunk to a few glowing ashes; the room was chill. Some of the candles had gone out and the others were guttering.

Rap lay sprawled in one of the big pillowed chairs, looking as long as a jotunn. He glanced up at her gloomily. "Well?"

"He's sleeping now," she said. "He was pretty distraught there for a while, but I think he'll be all right."

Rap grunted in misery.

"Not much we can do, really," she said, "except hold him tight and love him and stay cheerful. "

Rap turned his mournful gaze back to the ashes in the grate. "No."

She perched on the arm of his chair. She had never seen Rap give in to despair before, and she was not going to allow it now. "I know he's big," she said, "but he's only thirteen. A thirteen-year-old in trouble needs his mother. "

Rap took a moment to react, then he looked up at her inquiringly. "I know that."

"Oh, good. I thought perhaps you were sulking and feeling rejected. "

But that did not win the indignant response she had hoped for. Rap just said, "No," and went back to brooding.

She tried again. "You have a kingdom to run. You can't spend all your time nursing children. If it was anyone's fault, it was mine, because I was supposed to be minding the kids while you were away. "

"It wasn't anyone's fault," Rap told the fireplace.

She tousled his hair thoughtfully. Obviously there was more wrong than she knew and obviously Rap had given up pretending that there wasn't, or he would be trying to seem more cheerful. It must be bad, if he was taking this long to get around to it. Something had happened back about Winterfest, around the time Holi was bom. Rap had been wading deep waters ever since.

"It wasn't deliberate," she said. "I'm sure of that. Gath wasn't deliberately trying to learn a word of power. He says he wasn't and he's not lying. He didn't know that Thrippy knew a word of power. How could he? No one did. Thrippy's never shown any occult ability at all that I know of. In fact, a little magic might have improved his work considerably." Thrippy had been a palace servant so long that she could not remember when he had not been old.

Rap showed no amusement. "I went down there," he said. "He's in a coma now, and sinking. They don't think he'll live till morning."

Poor old Thrippy!

But the word that had done nothing for the old man had shattered the boy. Gath must have inherited his father's knack for magic, just as he had inherited his porcupine hair. Differentcolored hair; different talent.

"So Gath has a sort of foresight? Your mother was a seer?" She waited a long time and finally Rap said, "So they say. I got the impression Gath was kind of a few minutes ahead of me all the time. He was answering questions before I asked them.

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