The Bard of Sorcery by Gerard Houarner

Author:Gerard Houarner [Houarner, Gerard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: fantasy sorcery
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2011-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Tralane gradually came out of his slumber, drawn by a flickering half-light, like a ghostly apparition hovering just at the edge of his field of vision. He hoped for a while that his waking was a dream, but the stirring of the covers near his foot alerted him to the reality he was slowly entering. He rolled over on his back and squinted through crusty eyelids to find Cumulain sitting up in bed, drawing up her feet to sit cross-legged, and studying Wyden's Eye, which lay in her lap like a piece of jewelry she was planning to wear. Outside the shutters, evening had fallen. A candle burned lazily on the table next to the bed.

"A fine piece of work," Cumulain said without turning around to look at Tralane, seemingly absorbed in the intricacies of the amulet.

"I've always thought so," Tralane replied in a light tone, though his response carried uncomfortable reverberations of a bravado he did not feel.

"Yes, but whoever made you forgot to let you cool long enough in water," Cumulain laughed and fell back on the bard's chest. He cried out but yielded to her weight, stroking her hair with one hand, her throat with the other. She held the Eye aloft, letting the candle light catch the flowing lines of the emerald jewel in its silver-woven web.

"What do you make of it?" he asked, after they had listened for a while to the wind blowing outside.

"It can be mastered, Tralane. You've been trained for the art, though you may never have exercised the will to control the forces you've been taught to call. The problem with you, dear Tralane, lies not so much with what you can do as with what you want to do."

"Oh yes, I've always wanted to do a lot of things, and I never seem to manage them all."

"Please wake up, Tralane," she said with exasperation, "and join me in this world. You've never really wanted to do anything but run."

Tralane thought for a moment. "I do that well," he commented.

"I'm sure. But there are better ways to pass the time."

"You, perhaps?" Tralane was aware that he was slipping into glib seductiveness. He had already had the woman, but now he felt the urge to keep her. He did not want to leave her or give her up to anyone else. Jealousy lurked on the fringes of his thoughts, prodding him to build a wall of fantasy around Cumulain, so that none but he could touch her.

Cumulain looked at him sadly. "Have you forgotten so soon what I said could be seen in you?"

"Is there a man who claims you?" Tralane asked, only partly in jest.

"There's been no talk of love since the Beast broke the bounds of tradition and claimed his own sacrifices. There can be no love until the siege is broken and the roads freed from ice, snow, and the threat of death."

"I know, I know. But afterwards—"

"We shall see. At this moment, no one has claims on me.

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