Ghostwalker - Erik Scott De Bie [103]
The ghostwalker's eyes were almost soft. "Mother," he whispered.
His rasping voice, however, jarred him back to reality. Walker pulled his arms from around his mother and tore himself free with a cry. He half-crawled, half-fell backward, slamming into the alley wall, but he hardly felt the impact. Uncalled emotions flowed up in an overwhelming torrent. He clutched his arms around his head in a vain attempt to keep them in.
"Is this the secret you've kept from me all these years, Father?" cried Walker, as though it were a curse. "Is this what you could not tell me?"
As always, Tarm Thardeyn was silent. The spirit just stood there, watching, though when he looked upon Lyetha, his gaze was filled with love. Walker screamed soundlessly.
After a moment, a gentle hand touched his shoulder.
"What's wrong?" Lyetha asked.
He shrugged off her hand. Walker looked at her but found there was little anger in him. He turned his eyes to his bare hands, covered with scars and dirt as they were. They were the hands of a warrior, the hands of an avenger, the hands of a murderer.
"These hands are too bloody to touch yours," Walker rasped.
"What are you talking about?" Lyetha asked. She moved around in front of him and gazed at him. "We're together again. We can run from here, go to Silverymoon-beyond! We can leave here for-"
"You can suggest such a thing?" he asked. "After all I have done, all I have become… All he did to me?"
"We can leave him behind. This is finished for us."
"Not for me," Walker said, shaking his head. "Not after what he has done. Greyt made me who I am, and he is the last." He stood and turned away. "He will be the last."
"No! You can't kill him!" Lyetha protested, clutching the fringe of his cloak.
"Why?" he snapped as he rounded on her. "Why? He has taken everything from us, ruined our lives. Why cannot I kill him?"
"There is something you need to know about Dharan," Lyetha said. Walker watched her levelly, even as she struggled to get the words out. "You, ah… your-your ring."
"My ring?" He held up the wolf's head ring.
"The lone wolf is… it's Dharan's family crest…"
"I know. He put it on me just before he killed me, so I would live through their blows," said Walker. Slowly, purposefully, he wound strips of watchman tabard around his hands, so that he did not have to look at them any more. "So I would be in pain to the last, until he removed it, and its protections with it. He lost it that night, and I found it. His old ring, from his adventuring days." His gaze turned cold.
Lyetha opened her mouth to protest, but the words would not come.
"What is it?" Walker asked, anger in his voice.
"When Dharan was just a boy, he grew up on tales of heroes," Lyetha said. "He… he always wanted to become one himself, to… to impress me, when we were young… but he… he…" Her voice grew soft. "In all of his eagerness to be a hero, he forgot that a hero must sometimes give up his dreams in order to do what is right. For Dharan, self-sacrifice is simply not possible."
Walker was impassive.
"I loved him once… before I loved Tarm… and then… I… you…" Then she trailed off, unable to speak.
The spirit of Tarm looked tragic at that moment, as though she had slapped him. He clearly understood what she was saying.
Walker did not.
"Why does that matter?" he demanded.
Lyetha looked back at him with bleary eyes and managed a little smile. "I… I guess…" She looked down. "I guess 'tis easier to destroy than to create."
They were silent for a moment. Then Walker sniffed.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it is."
With his toe, he flipped the sword off the ground into his hand. "Go home, Lyetha. I shall remember what you have said this day, and my vengeance will pass you by."
Lyetha reached out to embrace Walker, but he stepped out of her reach.
"I am lost to you, Mother," he said. "I did not see the truth, and now it is too late. Forgive me for what I have done, and for what I must do."
The spirit of Tarm Thardeyn looked at him and cast a wistful glance at Lyetha, who could neither see him nor feel his loving caress.