Down to the Sea by William R. Forstchen

Author:William R. Forstchen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

“What is it, Sean?”

Ashamed that she had caught him thus, he slipped out of the bed and retreated to the small veranda attached to their bedroom in the palace of Hazin.

Slipping on a light robe, Karinia came out to join him. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, “I woke up, and it sounded like you were crying.”

He lowered his head, covering his eyes with his hands. “Nothing,” he whispered. “A bad dream, that’s all.”

“Tell me about it.” She sat down beside him, hands lightly touching his shoulders, rubbing them.

“My mother. I dreamed she was still alive, back in Roum. She asked me why I had done what I have.”

“Done what?”

“Stayed here,” and he uncovered his face.

Ever so gently she touched the tears on his cheeks as if they were some strange curiosity she had never experienced before. She touched a teardrop on her fingertip to her lips.

“And my father, yelling drunkenly. Funny, that’s one of the few memories I have of him from when I was a boy. Him drunk.”

“Did he hit your mother?”

“No. He was never like that. A good-natured mick, they called him. He’d laugh too loudly, always with some of his friends from the army when he came to Roum. He’d give me some present, then have the servants shoo me off to bed. In the morning he’d be gone and my mother would cry for days afterward. He was with her in the dream, asking me the same thing.”

“You regret staying?”

He looked over at her and forced a smile. “For you? No, of course not.”

He let his fingers lightly trace the line of her jaw. His hand cupped her cheek for a second, then fell away. He stood up, leaning over the railing. Below was the main courtyard of the temple. In this, the hour before dawn, initiates of the first order, Kazan and human, were dimly visible, lying on the flagstone pavement with arms spread wide. At dusk they had drunk of the holy waters, and even now they drifted in their visions. Occasionally one would moan softly.

Guards paced back and forth between the rows. Several of the bodies were completely still, blood splattered around them, their heads neatly laid to one side. Even as he watched, one of them, caught in a horrible vision, began to stand up, crying out. He was dead within seconds, body collapsing, spraying blood. He had failed, falling victim to the inner terror. He had not learned stillness in the face of fear.

“Ghastly in its power,” Sean whispered.

“The first thing you learn,” Karinia replied. “Weakness is the destroyer.”

He stepped back from the spectacle below, looking over at her. “My tears were weakness.”

She smiled. “No. Just love.” She moved into his arms. “I vaguely remember my mother,” she whispered. “My father, any of our fathers, none of us know. He is simply selected, then is gone.”

“Were you selected for me?” Sean asked.

She slipped from his embrace, returning to the bed, beckoning for him to follow, which he did.

As he lay down beside her, she lightly traced a fingertip across his chest.

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