Thrall - Christie Golden [44]
“It’s a nice story, and much cleverer than any I would have expected from an orc,” Taretha said. “But it’s a lie. The world is certainly not that way here. And that’s the only world I know.”
“What if I could prove it to you?” he said.
“That’s impossible!”
“But—if I could?”
Taretha was still wary, but he could tell she was growing curious. “How?” she asked.
“You did meet the infant orc,” Thrall said. “You remember what color his eyes were?”
“Blue,” she said at once. “No one had ever seen an orc with blue eyes before or since.”
Thrall pointed to his face. “My eyes are blue, Taretha. And I, too, have never known of any other orc with blue eyes.”
She snorted. “Like I’d come close enough to look into your eyes at night,” she said. “Nice try.” She jerked her head to the left. “Start walking, greenskin.”
“Wait! There is one more thing … to prove to you I’m telling the truth.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” she said.
“In the bag,” he persisted. “Look in the bag. There’s a small pouch in it. In that pouch … I think you’ll find something you’ll recognize.”
He prayed he was right. The small pouch contained only a few items. His totems. The acorn, of course—the gift of the ancients. A makeshift altar, with representations of each of the elements. And … something precious. Something that had been lost to him but had been found again … something that he would keep with him until the day he died.
“If this is a trick, I’ll blow a hole in you so big …,” she muttered, but, scowling and obviously despite her better judgment, she knelt carefully and began to rummage through the bag. “What am I looking for?”
“If I’m right … you’ll know it when you see it.”
She muttered again, shifting the musket to her right hand and dumping out the satchel with her left. She combed through the items, obviously seeing nothing that meant anything.
“All I see is a rock, a feather, a—”
Taretha fell silent. She stared at the small piece of jewelry glinting in the moonslight. She seemed to have completely forgotten all about Thrall as one hand, trembling, picked up the silver necklace. A crescent moon swung from the chain. She looked, openmouthed, at Thrall, and instead of the anger and underlying fear and hatred that had distorted her pretty features earlier, there was shock … and wonderment.
“My necklace,” she said, her voice soft and small.
“You gave it to me,” Thrall said. “When you helped me escape. There was a fallen tree you told me to hide it in. Near a boulder shaped like a dragon.”
Slowly, not even looking at him anymore, she put the gun down. With her other hand, Taretha reached into her worn linen shirt and pulled out a necklace identical to the one she held.
“There was a dent I made in it when I was young,” she said. “Right … here …”
Both necklaces had the exact same dent: a slight misshaping of the bottom horn of the crescent.
She looked up at him, and for the first time he could see the Taretha he remembered gazing back at him. Slowly he went to her, kneeling down on the ground beside her.
Her hand closed upon the second necklace, then she held it out to him. She released it, and it crumpled gently into his huge green palm. She looked at Thrall, no fear in her face, and smiled slightly.
“Your eyes,” she said quietly, “are blue.”
Thrall was pleased, but not surprised, that Taretha believed him, despite how ludicrous he knew his story sounded. He had given her proof she could not dispute. The Taretha he had known would have looked without bias on such proof. And this woman before him was still Taretha, though much different from the gentle, sincere young woman he remembered.
They talked for a long time. Thrall told her of his world, although he did not tell Taretha what eventually became of her. He would not lie if she asked, but she did not. He told her of his history, and the task that Ysera had set him on.
And she told him, poking at the fire, bits and pieces of information about this new, twisted timeway that had sprung up.
“Oh, Blackmoore