The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [113]
“You’re nothing but a demon-driven killer,” she says.
Creslin steps back.
“Don’t worry, Creslin. I dare not hurt you, not unless I want to die, and that’s the last thing I want. I wouldn’t give sister dear the pleasure. Nor my dear cousin. And I certainly wouldn’t wish to disgrace my best-betrothed husband.”
“What—”
“Of course you don’t understand. You were born in the Legend, and you don’t understand. That’s because you’re a man. Give a man great power and he does great wrong. Sword and storm. So you killed that poor man. He couldn’t have touched you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“You provoked him so that you could kill him. Do you deny that?”
“No. But you’re wrong.”
“Do tell me, best-betrothed. Tell me how you are different from other men. Lie like every man.”
Creslin sighs.
“Do we now have sighs of regret? Or of exasperation?”
“Are you going to listen, or is your mind made up?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Megaera!” Creslin rolls her name off his tongue, and the sound booms like thunder, yet echoes like lightning. “This is a prison garrison. Every man in that keep has killed at least one person. Not in battle, but in cold blood. The Duke took the salvageable men back to defend Montgren. Zarlen would have kept up his provocation until I killed him or he killed me. You’re right. I did challenge him. I did it in plain sight so that every other guard understands that attacking me or lusting for you is death.” Creslin’s eyes are like the ice of the Roof of the World.
“I am from Westwind, and I am of Westwind. And I do believe in the Legend. But I do kill. As little as possible, strange as it seems. The Legend of Ryba does not forbid violence or death, only senseless violence and death. You seem to have forgotten the difference. You also seem to forget that I also die, in a way, whenever someone dies in a storm I have created. In that way, I’m selfish. If Zarlen had forced me to use the winds against him, I would die again, and I’ve felt enough deaths.”
Megaera’s eyes remain bright, and dust streaks her cheeks. “Dead is still dead.”
“I know. But I’m tired of reacting. If I had thought things through, half of the destruction I’ve caused with my creative and orderly powers would not have happened. This time I could see the whole chain of deaths—revenge, lust, and anger—stretched out.” His eyes rake hers. “And I didn’t notice you doing much to discourage that attention.”
“You still don’t understand. Not me, not women, and not life.”
“I’m getting the horses. I expect you to be here when I get back.”
“Where else could I go, O best-betrothed?”
He steps outside; she watches.
“Where else could I go, O best-betrothed?” The words ring in his ears as he closes the battered door behind him. Where else can either of them go?
“Are you all right?” asks Klerris, who stands outside an even more dilapidated stone cot less than twenty cubits away.
Creslin shakes his head, then looks down toward the pier and the breakwater, toward the Griffin and the horses he must reclaim.
The older wizard smiles wryly and crosses the sandy, stony ground that separates them. “After all the years, I still can’t claim to understand Lydya.”
“All the years . . .” muses Creslin. “All the years . . .” His eyes shift from the harbor below to Klerris. “Is Lydya as old as you are?”
Klerris gives a sheepish smile that makes him seem momentarily boyish. “Well, she has a bit better control of internal order than I do. She’s . . . somewhat older.”
Creslin lets his senses drift around the man, but the words ring true, and Klerris stands calmly waiting with the unvarying solidness that Creslin has come to associate with order. “Besides live forever and heal people, what else can you do?”
Klerris purses his lips. “Except for weather control—and very few, if any, of us can match your raw power—order magic is mostly limited to healing and strengthening things. There are some illusions we can create that don’t involve chaos, like disappearing. We can put people to sleep without hurting them, unless