The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [175]
. . . best-beloved. . . Megaera has turned faintly green. “What . . .”
The white emptiness turns within him, and he knows. How he knows, he does not know. But the awful sureness of the knowledge cuts like the dullest of swords.
“Llyse . . .” He shakes his head, and his eyes burn. “Llyse.” Slowly he pushes back his chair and stands, almost unseeing as he walks toward the door to the terrace and the mist that is not quite heavy enough to fall like rain.
Megaera follows, and Aldonya watches for a moment, until the redhead has left the dining room. Then she shakes her head. “Wizards . . . but still, they should eat.” She begins to gather the remnants of the dinner that will not be completed, her ears alert for the sound of a child who is due to wake.
Outside, Megaera stands beside Creslin and slips her hand around his. For the first time she can remember, his fingers are colder than hers.
“She’s dead.”
“Do you know what happened?”
“Just that she’s gone.”
“Do you . . .”
“White . . . it’s all white. They’re both gone. Gone.” Creslin’s eyes are dry, dry like the desert, like Recluce before the rains, and his guts are lead-tight and heavy within him.
She takes both of his hands.
“That’s another I owe them,” he says.
“You can’t look at it like that.”
“Probably not, but I do.” . . . Llyse . . . Llyse . . . He wishes that tears would come, but his eyes are dry and they ache, and his hands are cold in Megaera’s.
As the mist chills the terrace, as the swells of the Eastern Ocean wash upon the sands below, the warmth flows from her hands into his.
CXXIII
“AT LEAST WESTWIND’S no longer a problem.” Hartor fingers the chain around his neck, his eyes darting to the mirror.
“Was it worth it? They still managed to get Jeick, and you had to sacrifice your tame minstrel. That doesn’t even count the men the remaining guards slaughtered,” Gyretis points out.
“That leaves Creslin with no support from Candar. Ryessa won’t support her sister. Montgren is ours, and Westwind’s deserted.” The High Wizard smiles tightly.
“What about the guards? There are still three squads and their kept men and children marching across the Westhorns.”
“Three squads? With camp followers? Let them march. What can they do? Where can they go?”
“To Recluce, I’d guess. You’ve probably given Creslin the beginnings of an army even more dangerous than the guards . . . and bearing even more hatred.”
“We destroyed the guards, Gyretis.”
The thin wizard purses his lips. “I think you went too far. Ryessa will probably regarrison Westwind, and I’d rather have had a young Marshall there than Ryessa. The remaining guards, assuming they reach Recluce, would join the ancient devils to strike back at you.”
“Not if they starve first. Creslin can’t feed what he’s got, and he doesn’t have ships, tools, money, or weapons. What can he do? Create a few more storms? What good will that do?”
“I don’t know. But Jenred thought he had everything figured out, too.” Gyretis shakes his head. “There must be something about that amulet.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” The young White Wizard smiles sadly. “Nothing.”
CXXIV
VOLA’S HOOVES CLICK on the newly-laid entrance road to the keep, another project of the Hamorian stoneworkers. Despite the lack of coin, they keep working. Is life in Hamor that bad?
Creslin glances to the row of narrow and unfinished stone cots below the road. Despite the still-falling mist, the stoneworkers’ hammers rise and fall, and their apprentices mix the crude mortar developed by Klerris from shells and sand and who knows what else. The next line of cots is theoretically for the consorts of both guards and troopers, though there are no consorts for the male troopers . . . yet. But the cots will ease the crowding in the keep.
Outside the stone bungalow that was once a cot and now hosts the two Black mages, Creslin dismounts and ties Vola loosely to the hitching rail he installed.
The neighboring cot, once deserted, boasts a new slate roof and glazed windows to shelter two stoneworkers who have already announced plans to find wives and stay