Gates of Hell by Susan Sizemore

Author:Susan Sizemore [Sizemore, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Speculation Press
Published: 2000-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

“What is your name?”

Though the woman he’d spoken to was beyond hearing, Pyr heard his own voice, deep, strong, the strain of controlled pain washed out of it. He opened his eyes and saw the blue wall first, then he felt the weight in his arms. Then he looked at the cold, limp woman he was holding. The boy was called Martin; Pyr remembered that much about his argument with the koltiri. That, and his promise. He remembered a great deal, and very little. He had learned much, but very little of it made sense. It had all been so—subjective.

Martin stood nearby, and that was not very far at all inside this small cell. Pyr had just come back from a vast and glorious place to the claustrophobic confines of the outside world. He remembered being on his knees, but now he stood, with the koltiri a dead weight clasped to his chest. He took in a deep breath of recycled air and felt no triumph or joy as it filled pain-free lungs. The absence of pain was a disturbing sensation, like being naked. He felt good, alive, healthy, but mostly he felt sad. Almost annoyed.

“Captain?”

Pilsane stood in the corridor outside the cell’s open door. Pyr ignored his anxious navigator for the moment. Death no longer hovered, but the boy did, trying to get at the woman Pyr held so close. He did not know if she lived, but he would not let her go. Martin’s eyes were large and dark when Pyr glanced his way, full of desperate worry. “Her name?”

Martin said, “Put her down. Let me look at her. I can help her.”

Pyr was aware of the young man straining to stay calm, reasonable, non-threatening. His concern for the woman was genuine, if complex, and of no interest to Pyr. “I will know her name.”

“Captain!”

Pilsane’s shock, however, was amusing. He savored the momentary pleasure at Pilsane’s reaction as a man of The People. Pyr had not been amused for a—Is that subjective reality in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?—while. Her thought flitted across his mind, and the memory of having found the words amusing, but he couldn’t recall now why the words had been funny. He only knew that the thought was the koltiri’s. While they had been together they had understood each other. Now they were strangers.

“Her name!” he snapped at Martin.

“Roxanne,” the boy gave up her identity at last.

It sang inside him. “I recognize the truth of it. Her father spoke it at her birth. I acknowledge Roxanne.” The words were ritual, spoken before two witnesses, though a court of the clans would not have agreed. Martin did not understand their significance. Pilsane let out a long, low whistle. And, because he had made a promise to the koltiri Roxanne, he looked at Pilsane and said, “The boy is called Martin. He belongs to the Raptor.”

Pilsane stared at him, looked him over minutely, and finally nodded. “As you say, Captain.

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