Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [72]
My religious training had been neglected in my chaotic childhood. As I grew older, I had no faith in mankind or in myself, consequently I had no faith in the Almin either I had given little thought to a life after death, except possibly to fear it if it existed. After all, for me, life itself was a daily burden. Why should I want to prolong it? At that instant, however, I believed I had found heaven. The beauty of the night, the peace and solitude that surrounded me, the sense of blessed aloneness.
My soul was content to take flight and slip away into the night. My body, however, stubbornly persisted in living and in reminding me—by its weakness—that I was alive. A chill wind blew through the grass. I had no shirt I was clad in nothing but some cast-off trousers that the Duuk-tsarith had given me in prison. I began to shiver with cold and with, undoubtedly, a reaction to my recent experiences. I was thirsty and hungry, too, having refused all food and drink during my captivity.
It was at that moment I began to wonder where I was and how I got here. I could see nothing in any direction but broad expanses of empty, moonlit grassland and—strangely—a small red, flashing light about one hundred feet from me. I suppose the light had been flashing all that time, but my spirit had been floating with the stars and had paid no attention to it.
I began to walk toward the light with some vague idea, I recall, that it might be the coals of a fire, which only goes to show that I was still not thinking clearly or I would have realized no fire would flash on and off in that persistent manner. It was while I was walking toward the light that I discovered Gwen.
She lay in the grass, unconscious. I knelt beside her, caught her up in my arms, and pressed her close all before it occurred to me to wonder how and why she was here. At that moment I recalled having heard her voice as I stepped into the mists and a confused impression that I saw a fluttering of her white gown. Perhaps we had been within a few feet of each other and never knew it, so thick was the fog. It didn’t matter. It seemed so right, somehow.
At my touch, she awoke. I could see her face clearly in the moonlight and it was then I saw the madness in her eyes. I knew it for what it was—how could I not? I had lived with it all my childhood. It was many months before I could admit it to myself, however. Certainly, I did not in that instant.
“Gwendolyn!” I whispered, cradling her in my arms.
At the sound of my voice, the eerie glint in her eyes faded. She looked up at me with the same look of love I had been so blessed to receive—a blessing I had changed to a curse!
“Joram,” she said softly reaching up with her hand to touch my face.
I saw my reflection in her eyes and then it began to waver and grow dim as the horror and madness banished me from her vision. I held onto her tightly, as though she were physically leaving me. Her body remained in my arms, but I could not prevent her spirit from running away.
The wind was rising. White fire lit the night and there came a thunderous crash. Looking up, I saw darkness swallowing the stars like some great monster crawling across the heavens. Lightning streaked from sky to ground. Even though the storm was some distance from us yet, the force of the wind nearly blew me over. The clouds swept toward us, the moon vanished as I watched, and I could smell the rain and feel its mist blowing against my face.
I could not believe the swiftness or the power of this storm. I looked around in panic. There was no shelter anywhere. We were stranded