Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Page a Day: One Hundred Fifty Six



             Yeh qualgum penjur, Jerem Cozak had said, back in the Well of Faith’s Healing. Let oceans enfold you. It’s not a hard language to pick up, your basic Thaeronian. 

            But no one else had ever said that to me here: let oceans enfold you. And I couldn’t recall that phrase from anywhere in Earth’s archives. Not a farewell, then. Not ritual at all.

            Your enemies are not of this world, he had also said. The Augers are opposition only.

            Yeah. I shivered. Right. If the equatorial air was any warmer, I surely did not feel it.

            Ki shaking her head. You have blackbrain, Cassan Vala. And you’re going to have it for the rest of your life.

            You must/ go down, said Suriel the Niskivim.

            There are too many voices in my head! I’d yelled at Ash.

            There are different kinds of bloodfish, Ki had said. In the ocean they form vast schools.  

            Yeah.  It’s just I hadn’t seen any, not in all this time.

            And why the hell was it so damned cold?

            All around me, the fog sat on its haunches. The haze shone a little lighter now. Came the dawn, then. Hours I’d been standing there. Time to get Ash up. He had work to do. I slipped back in the tent to find him snoring luxuriously. Men. No matter what, they think they’ve accomplished something. He stretched out across my sheets like an animal king. I clapped and kicked, enjoying myself. He came up showing me entirely the wrong kind of eyes.

            “Lieutenant!” I said. “Get my valkyrie. And Nogilian.”
 
          He looked at me like I was mad. But he pulled his clothes on. I said no more. Exeunt my personal aide and senior intelligence officer.

No comments: