Judith Tarr The Hounds of God

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"So much like you. Slay me, my brother. Has not
God commanded it? Cast me into the everlasting fire."
"Silence him," Paul commanded swiftly. His voice seemed to come from very far
away. "He is ancient, my son, ancient in his evil. Silence his serpent's
tongue lest it turn you from the very face of God." Alf felt the closing of
his throat, the freezing of his tongue. But he could smile. He could set his
hands on the other's shoulders. They were narrower than his own, although the
man seemed sturdy enough, lean rather than slender. Brother, his will said.
Brother.
Simon struck the hands away, struck
Alf to his knees. "Like," he whispered. "So like." He bent, searching the
lifted face. His fist caught it. It rocked, steadied, blinked away tears of
pain. Fair though the skin was, the bruise did not rise swiftly enough. His
power uncoiled. It reached, at
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Alf gasped, more in surprise than in pain.
He could not feel--he felt--
His face itched. Small annoyance; it baffled him. Simon was watching with
terrible fascination. He raised a trembling hand. The skin had roughened.
No. Had grown-- was growing--
He laughed for pure mirth. After all these long years, after all the taunts
and all the doubts and all his hard-won acceptance, he was sprouting a beard.
A soft one as beards went, but thick and growing as sturdily as Jehan's had
that night in
Caer Gwent. Simon did not take kindly to his merriment. For that alone he kept
it up. His voice was deeper. His skin felt harsher. were his bones heavier?
His hands were slender still, but not as slender as they had been. They were
becoming a man's hands. Pale hair thickened on the backs of them. He itched
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elsewhere, his belly, his deepening chest. He was a little taller; a little
broader. His beard was growing, curling, white-gold as the hair of his head.
His laughter faded. His knees ached. His back twinged, not scarred skin alone
but the bones within. The skin on his hands coarsened. The joints knotted.
Veins and tendons rose into relief. A tooth began to throb. His tongue,
probing, found it loose. He was aging. Like a mortal man, but faster, far
faster, a whole lifetime in a moment.
Eyes and ears were dulling. His head was too heavy for his neck. Having grown,
now he shrank and shriveled, trembling with the palsy of age. His vision spun,
staggered, sharpened to a bitter clarity.
Simon had lent his own eyes. On the floor huddled an old, old man, a man who
had lived every one of Alfred's many years.
And yet he was not pitiable. He was--yes, he was still comely, and the eyes in
the age-ravaged face, though faded, kept much of their old brightness. There
was no fear in them.
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Not an ill body even yet, and not an utter ruin. He could stand, with great
effort. He could smile. He could wield a voice not thinned overmuch, not
indeed much higher than it had ever been.
"Alas, Brother Simon, you'll never slay my vanity until you slay me."
Simon's rage roared over him in blood-red fire. He tumbled over and over,
helpless, but not, by God, not ever afraid. The hand that held him from the
floor was his own again, smooth and long-fingered. His cheeks bore only the
merest downy suggestion of a beard. His teeth lay quiescent in their places;
his voice, though well broken, was a clear young tenor. "My thanks, brother.
In spite of its disadvantages, I do prefer this semblance. And now," he said,
raising himself, hardening his tone, "and
now I think there has been enough of this entertainment.
Simon of Montefaico, monk of Saint
Paul, kinsman ofRhiyana's King, I call you to the reckoning."
He had taken Simon by surprise. "You have no power--" "I have the right. The
Church does not deny fair trial to any, even to such as I.
Let that trial, by my choice, be trial by combat."
"You cannot help but lose."
"If so," Alfsd, "then so be it. I would far rather die in battle than at the
stake."
Thea flung herself to her knees beside him. No one hindered her. Simon was
motionless, unreadable;
Paul frowned, searching transparently for a trick, finding none. She gripped
Alfs shoulders with fierce strength. Although she knew that Simon would hear,
she spoke in Alfs ear, just above a hiss. "Have you forgotten the children?
Have you forgotten me?"
"Never," he answered, equally low. "Thea, we're all dead, one way or another.
But I
won't sell our lives cheaply. I'm going to try at the very least to mark him,
to give him a wound that he will not forget." Her breath hissed between her
teeth.
She plared into his 260 Judith Tarr eyes, her own as fiery dark as old bronze.
He tried to speak to her below thought, to the place in his soul that was hers
and hers alone. A hut of mud and wattle beset by a battering ram; a woman's
hand upon a tapestry, embroi dering the petals of a flower. And, as clearly as
he dared, a small furred creature gnawing away the roots of an oak. Despair
shook him. She did not see. Her eyes and her mind held only anger, outrage,
frustration. "I'm fighting beside you," she said, biting off the words. "You
can't stop me."
He lifted one shoulder. His finger brushed the stiff set of her lips. They
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would not soften.
"Whatever comes of this, know you well, Thea
Damaskena, I regret not one moment of all our years together." "Not one,
Alfred of Saint
Ruan's?"
"After all," he said, considering each word, "not one." He kissed her lightly,
and then more deeply.
When he rose she remained upon her knees, her face rigid, white as bone. He
turned to Simon. "I am ready."
For an eternal while, Simon simply stood.
Perhaps he prayed. Perhaps he hoped to lure Alf into attack. Alf was not to be
lured. His formal praying was long past, the rest left to God. Fear had died
to a steady roaring beneath the surface of his brain. He simply waited as he
had waited for so long, with watchful patience. His shields were up, but
lightly. His power gathered hard and bright and pulsing behind them. He
shifted his sight. The flawed hemisphere of his eyes' vision grew and rounded.
But he saw no more and no better. Simon filled the world like the sun unbound,
raging from pole to pole. It had consumed its own center, the mastering
will. It was consuming the body that bore it. Unchecked, it could consume all
that was. Could, although in the doing it would destroy itself.
Alts fear howled within its chains, swelling into terror. He had never stood
so close to death.
Had never dreamed. the hounds OF god 261 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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