The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [123]
“Do you see that, Lord Perryn? Do you see what you’ve been doing?”
Perryn looked from her to himself and back to Salamander, then suddenly moaned and hid his eyes with his hands. The gerthddyn said a few more Elvish words, then snapped his fingers. A golden sword made of what seemed to be solid light appeared in his hand. He swept it back and forth, slashing at every tendril that bound her to Perryn. The light lines snapped like cut tether ropes and slapped back to him. Perryn screamed, but she felt her mind and her will come back to her, and with them, a revulsion, a burning hatred for this man who’d broken her like a wild horse. When Salamander chanted again, the glowing ciouds and the sword vanished. Perryn raised his head.
“Don’t look at me that way, my love,” he whispered. “Oh, by Kerun himself, you’re not going to leave me, are you?”
“Of course I am, you bastard! I never want to see you again in my god-cursed life.”
“Jill, Jill, I beg you, don’t go! I love you!”
“Love?” She felt her hatred burning in her mouth. “I spit on your idea of love!”
When Perryn began to weep, the sound was beautiful to her. Salamander looked as if he was thinking of kicking him, then restrained himself.
“Listen, you!” he snarled. “Out of sheer pity I’ll tell you one thing: you’ve got to stop stealing women and horses this way, or it’ll kill you. Do you hear me?”
Slowly Perryn got to his feet to face the gerthddyn, and his face worked as if he was desperately trying to summon some dignity.
“I don’t know who you are,” he whispered. “But I don’t have to stay here and have you pour vinegar in my wounds. I can’t stop you from taking Jill away, so go. You hear me! Get out!” His voice rose to a shriek. “Go away! Both of you!”
Then he fell sobbing to his knees again.
“Very well.” Salamander turned to Jill. “Let us leave this whimpering dolt to whatever justice the gods have in store for him.”
“Gladly.”
In a swirl of joyous Wildfolk, they mounted their horses. A big black gnome with purple splotches threw the lead rope of the pack horse up to Salamander, then disappeared as they rode away. Jill glanced back once to see Perryn stretched out on the grass, still weeping in a sea of swelling emerald, with his gray nuzzling his shoulder in concern. Nothing had ever pleased her as much as his pain.
For about a mile they rode in silence, until they came free of the trees to one of the muddy tracks that passed for a Cerrgonney road. There Salamander paused his horse, waved at her to do the same, and turned in his saddle to look her over in sincere concern. She could only stare blankly back at him.
“How do you feel, Jill?”
“Exhausted.”
“No doubt, but you’ll get your strength back in a bit.”
“Good. Will the world ever hold still again?”
“What? What’s it doing at the moment?”
“Well, everything’s all … not hazy, exactly, but nothing will hold still, and these colors … everything’s so bright and glowy.” She hesitated, struggling with the unfamiliar task of forming sentences. “Nothing has edges, you see. It all sparkles and runs together. And there’s no Time anymore. Wait, that’s not right. But it is.”
“Oh ye gods! What did that lout do to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“My apologies, just a rhetorical question. Jill, this is blasted serious.”
“I could figure that out myself, my thanks. Will I ever see the world like it really is again?”
“You mean, will you ever see it as you used to, because as for the world as it really is, my turtledove, that’s what you’re seeing right now. Before, you’ve only seen the dull, dead, dark, and deceiving surface, as most people do.”
“But here! These colors, and the way everything moves—”
“Are real enough. But, truly, most inconvenient withal. The gods are kind, turtledove. They let most men see only what they need to