The Broken Kings--Book Three of the Merlin Codex by Robert Holdstock

Author:Robert Holdstock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Chapter Twenty

Dream Hunt

I ran for the street, hauling back the door and stepping out into the fierce sunshine. The older woman had scurried behind me, pushing the door closed again, shutting me out.

Almost at once a crowd surged around the corner, pressing me back against the house.

They were children of all ages, garlanded with flowers, grey-green herbs, and leaves, all dressed in pale green or bright yellow tunics, the boys with their faces painted an azure blue, the girls painted scarlet red. They flowed past me as a turbulent stream, shrill and insensate. Then there came a cry from behind them, and the whole crowd turned as one, with all the sudden speed of a shifting shoal of fish, and began to run back along the street. Then a horn sounded from elsewhere and again they turned as one, retracing their steps, streaming past me once more, a single mind, a single purpose, a stampede of celebration.

And in the middle of them I saw suddenly an unpainted face, but a familiar shock of hair. Niiv was small, and many of the children were taller than she, but her features were as bright and as recognisable as a comet in the heavens. I plunged into the running throng, fought my way through the heave of small bodies as they crushed in their haste, wheeling round into a narrower street, following the horn call.

I managed to grab Niiv by the shoulder. She turned in alarm and fury. Her eyes were intense with ecstasy. She stared at me, not knowing me, caught up in the madness. I held on to her, despite her struggles and screams, and eventually the last of the shoal had passed. The street was silent.

Her eyes focused. The trance lifted. She came gently into my arms and rested her face against my chest.

“That was so strange. Merlin! So strange.”

“What have you done?” I whispered. “What have you let yourself do this time?”

“Strange! Strange!” she repeated, holding me in a lover’s embrace, embracing my gaze with hers. She tried to kiss me. I drew back. Her grip hardened; then her hand reached for my cheek, tugging my face closer. She was feral and panting; cat-breath was strong on her lips and tongue, and she shuddered for a moment, finding the kiss she desired, for that moment, that stunning, urgent moment—before I flung her against the wall of the house.

She growled now, slipping down to her haunches, disappointed and angry, watching me with eyes that might have said: I’ll have you, or might have said, How dare you!

Again I rescued her, lifting her gently to her feet. “Tell me about strange. What was strange?”

Softer then, she turned into my grasp, head on my breast. “The woman,” she said. “The quelling woman.”

The name made me uncomfortable. In the word she used came a feeling I was used to. Her word reminded me of the feeling of the woman who had possessed the cave at Akirotiri, when we had first found harbour on the island, a few days ago.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.