A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [141]
The faceless head above him twisted again, flowing like porridge beneath a cook's paddle, and then suddenly spun into… the likeness of a beautiful brown-eyed lass. The most beautiful woman, Suldun realized dazedly, that he'd ever seen.
"There," the Koglaur asked, in a soft, husky, utterly feminine voice, "is that easier?"
She-it-the Koglaur looked down his body, then, as Suldun Greatsarn struggled to find words to reply, and murmured something he did not understand. It sounded like the tongue of another land, but not one he'd ever heard in all the markets of Sirlptar. Now she was laying long, rubbery-fingered hands on Suldun's wounds-right on the gaping holes left by the-gods!
Suldun convulsed with the pain, shuddering… then sank back onto the deck, sighing, as coolness flooded through him. It was slowly taking the pain with it, leaving him… whole. He knew it, somehow: he'd been healed completely.
And yet he was so weak he couldn't lift his shoulders an inch off the deck beneath him.
"Lie still," that husky voice said from above. "You've lost much blood."
There were surging sounds and splashes, the sounds of large bodies heaving themselves up out of the water-and so they were: water-dripping Faceless whose faces were smooth expanses of nothing, but who still seemed to look at him as they found their feet and padded off down the deckboards to take oar after oar, and end the drifting.
They were near the fishing dock they'd started from, and the faceless men rowed only a few strokes ere the barge grated gently against the pilings. Swift, rubbery hands moored it, tying its ropes securely.
"Fare thee well, Suldun Greatsarn," the Koglaur said to him, with a wink and a wave, as she-it was impossible to see that magnificent body move and think of it as anything but "she"-rose and stepped onto the dock.
"Wha… why did you heal me?" Suldun gasped. "What am I to you?"
"An Aglirtan," she said softly, looking down. "We like Aglirtans, and give our lives defending them, all too often." She bent closer, and added, "We always like to leave a few of you alive who've seen us, to keep the whispers alive about us, up and down Aglirta. Fear is like a second sword in one's hand."
"And if I tell folk you defend us, and are not to be feared?"
The Koglaur laughed. "They won't believe you. They never do." And she-he-it turned away, leaving Suldun believing until his dying day that those last three words had held more sadness than he'd ever heard in a human voice before.
They were human, weren't they? Well, what was "human"?
"You could have been king," Embra murmured, as they linked hands, walking slowly to nowhere through the gardens. A few courtiers were lighting hanging candle-lamps here and there, but they drew aside whenever the pair of overdukes approached, leaving them to walk alone.
"You could have been queen," Hawkril rumbled back at her. "Aglirta needs someone strong and loving and swift of wits. Why not a queen to rule the Vale? You'd have been better at it than any of us."
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I don't know," she said lightly. "Craer can look pretty good in a dress, when he has to."
Hawk snorted. A few paces farther on, he said, "We jest together all the time, we F-three. I like that. It warms me, makes me feel wanted and… welcome at table. And yet I want to speak plainly now, Lady."
"Lady mine," she corrected, and he came to a halt, holding her hand tightly.
"That's what I want to talk of," the armaragor said quietly, his eyes steady on hers. "I-I am too much lowborn Aglirtan not to want to bed a woman and feel she's either a friend, or bought for a night, or a warrior's wenching in passing-or someone he can stand with, lifelong, and should wed. You are the first of those choices, I will never let you be the second or third, and I-I very much want you to be the fourth."
Embra looked back at him. "Did you not hear me refuse Kelgrael before all the court,