Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [24]
“It might well, at that. Of course, there’s no reason for you to die with your domain. You could choose birth like your daughter has.”
She spoke casually, barely looking his way.
“I’ve made my choice,” he snapped. “Never shall I go live in the world of blood and muck and pain and mire.”
“Well, then there’s naught I can do about it, is there?”
His hurt that she would sound so indifferent to his death stabbed like a winter wind. For a moment he was tempted to change his mind, just to spite her.
“But I do have to visit it now and again,” he said instead. “I’ve started a few more hares upon this field, and I have to go see how they run.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
He laughed, tossing back his head.
“I hope I do, too, my beloved. I sincerely hope I do. Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not a question of trust. It’s just that everything’s getting so dreadfully complicated. You seem to have so many schemes afoot.”
“Only the one, to keep Elessario safe once she’s born.”
“But you’ve a fair number of meats simmering in this particular stew. And I worry about Time, my love. It runs so differently here in your world than it does in mine.”
“Why must you always refer to that world as yours? I want you to stay here forever with me.”
She hesitated, but in the end, although he could see longing in her eyes, she shook her head no.
“My place is there, in the world of men, the world of Time.”
“And the world of Death.”
“It is, at that. Some things are beyond changing. But after death comes new birth.”
He tried to speak, but no words came. Whether it was beyond his changing or not, he knew that Time and her daughter Death were beyond his understanding. The knowing gave him doubts. Maybe he didn’t understand the universe as completely as he thought he did, maybe his power was far more limited than he thought it was. With those doubts, a distant city vanished from his lands forever, wiped away like a smear of charcoal from a hearthstone.
Although it seemed to Evandar that a mere hour or two had gone by since he’d seen the Gel da’Thae bard and spoken with Jahdo, ten whole days of Time as we measure it in our world had passed for them. They’d been following the stream south, stopping often to rest the horse and mule, since by then they were long out of oats. Although they skirted hills, rising off to the north and east, the river itself seemed headed for lower country. As the river deepened, the banks turned flat and grassy, so that the walking became much easier, even though the forest grew thick and wild to either hand. As Jahdo described the terrain to the bard, Meer remarked that someone must be inhabiting this country, whether they’d seen them or not.
“Trees hug water, lad. Following this river should be a battle, not an easy stroll. Someone cleared this bank, and not so long ago, either, or second growth would have taken it over.”
“Weil, maybe so. I hope they don’t mind us using the road.”
“So do I.”
Thinking about what might happen to them if they ran into hostile natives made Jahdo nervous enough to sharpen his eyes. As the river began turning east, he found himself studying the bank as they walked. Here and there he found brown traces of crumbling horse dung, and the rare hoof-print, too, cut so deeply that the rains hadn’t washed it away.
“Do you think that’s dung from Thavrae’s horses?”
“It sounds too old from the way you describe it,” Meer said. “So it more likely came from horses belonging to the natives. Hum. If they drive stock through here, clearing the bank would make sense.”
“I wonder if they be the same people from the old tales? The ones who helped the ancestors escape.”
“Those were the Children of the Gods,” Meer snapped. “The lore says so.”
“But what would gods want with real horses?”
Meer had to chew over this piece of heresy for a long time before he answered.
“Perhaps your helpers were indeed