[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
within.
No!
It was Danton's child who defied the prophecy. Not because he was tainted by sorcery—
Ramirus had assured her that was not the case—but simply because he was what he was: his
father's child. Half his heritage was lyr, but the other half was not; that alien inheritance was
now wedded to her flesh. Gwynofar could not sacrifice her own life without offering up his
life as well. And he did not satisfy the conditions of the prophecy.
"No," she whispered. Remembering her other lost children, lying dead at her feet in a pool of
blood. A part of her soul had died that day. "Don't ask this of me...."
But it was too late.
The trap door jerked upward, forcing the bolt partway out of its mooring. "Who is in there?" a
voice demanded from below. "Open this door!"
And then the voices were gone, and all the noises of the world outside, and there was only a
terrible silence within her ...
. .. and memory.
His strength will never be measured, Ramirus had told her, but he will test the strength of
others. He will attend upon death without seeing it, change the fate of the world without
knowing it, and inspire sacrifice without understanding it.
Kostas had understood the power of such a pregnancy. That was why lie had baited Danton
into raping her, and had used his own sorcery to guarantee conception. As long as the High
King's son was wedded to her Mesh she could not manifest her full potential as lyra. Oh, the
vile creature couldn't possibly have known how important Gwynofar's unique heritage would
turn out to be, but on the eve of the Souleaters' return, any lyr who
might be neutralized was one less enemy to worry about later. The fact that her poor innocent
child now held the fate of the world hostage was something none of them could have
foreseen.
Don't ask this of me, she begged silently. But the offer had already been made, and could not
be recalled.
Pain lanced through her abdomen as the trap door slammed open. With a cry she doubled over
in pain, as her body struggled to protect the child it had nurtured for so long. But the power of
the throne—or the gods—was stronger. A rough hand grabbed her arm as her womb
convulsed—
And then something bright and terrible exploded inside her. Power, raw and unfettered,
surged through her with such unexpected force that it drove the air from her lungs. The hand
that had grabbed hold of her arm fell away, and from somewhere in the distance she heard a
man's cry of pain. But she could not focus on anything outside her own flesh now. A firestorm
had taken root in her soul and molten power poured through her veins, agony and ecstasy
combined into one terrible conflagration.
Just when she thought that her body could not contain it any longer, the power burst out of
her, flooding the world beyond with its fire. It surged through the souls of the men
surrounding her, then into the guards who waited below, and into all the inhabitants of the
Citadel... she could feel it as it swallowed each new soul, spitting out those very few who had
no northern blood in their veins, claiming all the others. Into the Alkali Protectorate it surged,
where thousands cried out in fear and pain as the power suddenly claimed them at their tables,
at their work, in their beds. Into the other Protectorates it rushed, and beyond them. Into the
High Kingdom and past it, to all the continents beyond, claiming every man, woman, and
child whose heritage bound them to the lyr. Gwynofar could sense the moment when the
power first touched Salvator, and she could taste his terror. She could feel it envelop her other
children in rapid succession, and then each of her grandchildren in his turn, down to the tiniest
newborn babe in his cradle. Each one taken by surprise as the mystical fire poured into them,
engulfed too swiftly to protest or resist it.
And then the power paused, and for a moment it seemed to Gwynofar that she sat at the heart
of a vast burning web that covered the whole of the earth, whose fiery strands bound each
new lyr into a vast and complex
pattern. She could sense the anchor cords that connected her soul to each of the seven
founding bloodlines, perfectly balanced in strength and tenor. I lad it been unbalanced, she
realized, the forces involved would have torn the whole construct to pieces, and her along
with it.
But how perfect a construct it was! Each new bit of soulfire that the throne's power absorbed
fed its strength into the greater whole, be it borrowed from the spirit of a true lyr, born and
bred for power, or from some long-forgotten descendant with only the faintest echo of
northern blood in his veins. All of them were bound together now in a vast metaphysical
conflagration, as if their souls had joined hands together for strength and support.
And then the images came. Rushing into Gwynofar's head with a force that threw her back
against the throne, traveling down the lines of inheritance to every other soul in the burning
web, drowning them all in a flood of memory so powerful that every other thought was
extinguished, leaving only—
—Wingshadows passing low over the farmlands, fertile fields made barren by abandonment.
A young boy sleeps by his plow, perhaps forever; his body twitches as the demons shadow
passes over him. In the distance his family gathers—what is left of his family—for a meal of
dried tubers and rotten berries, the best they could gather from fields long since gone wild.
Rats in the corner have eaten their way through the burlap bag that guards their stores, but no
one notices. No one has the energy to notice. The war with the rats cannot be won because
they are stronger than men now; the winged demons have reordered nature to suit their
hunger—
—Winters cordwood running out and all there is left to burn for heat is furniture, artwork,
books. Why mourn their loss? There is no need for such things anymore. An ax lies unused by
the door, for none have the strength—or perhaps strength of will—to wield it. The child in the
cradle shivers in his sleep, but will not awaken. The strength has been sucked out of its soul,
and all that is left now in an empty shell, too weak to dream of its mother's lost milk—
—Golden cities stripped of their burnish by time and. neglect, overgrown with weeds. Proud
stone temples robbed of their marble for building supplies, for
projects abandoned in their turn. Ebony idols broken apart for fuel. Priceless tapestries torn to
pieces when all other clothing is gone, or else perhaps laid out whole upon the earth to serve
as bedding, until time and damp rot them away—
—Staggering across the dying landscape, a handful of survivors struggle to find others of their
kind before it is too late. A lone demon circles high overhead, picking at their souls like a
carrion bird tearing at rotting meat, but it cannot devour these spirits as quickly or as easily as
it does the souls of other men. A gift of the gods? Or merely a quirk of nature"? One of the
survivors falls and does not get up, but the others are stronger. More determined. They expend
enough energy to build him a cairn—itself an act of defiance—and then persist in their
journey. Somewhere there must be others like them, resistant to the power of the demons,
perhaps even a few who are wholly immune—
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]