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.She had known all along somehow that it was Lexie lying there helpless, andthat she had been responsible for the act or omission that had landed Lexie there.She struggled against her bonds, but the hawks went on screaming.She could see what they weredoing now; with every surge upward of the flame, the hawks swirled, borne on the currents of fire, andswooped over Lexie’s inert figure, and with every downward swoop they tore into her naked flesh,carrying away great dripping hunks of blood and skin, while Lexie screamed, terrible screams thatreminded Magda horribly of the time she and Jaelle had been marooned in a cave with rising floodwater,and Jaelle had miscarried Peter Haldane’s child.She had been delirious, not fully aware what washappening much of the time, and in her delirium she had screamed like that, as if she were being tornasunder, and Magda had not been able to help her.They had come so close to dying there.And now it was Lexie screaming.And it is my fault; she was competing with me, and that washow she got into this.Again Magda strained against her bonds to rush forward to Lexie, but there was a curious blue fire inthe air, and in that evil glow she could see the face of the black sorceress Aquilara.“Yes, you always want to ease your own conscience by being so ready to help other people.Butnow it is your task to learn detachment; that her troubles are not of your making, and that she must takethe consequences of her own actions,” Aquilara explained callously.It sounded so rational, soreasonable, and yet the screams tore at her as if every stroke of the razor talons and cruel bloody beaksfell on her own heart.“Yes, that is what they are doing,” Aquilara went on explaining.“They will tear and tear at that falseand sentimental conscience of yours which you think of as your heart, until it is gone from your breast.”And Magda, looking down, saw a great bleeding hole opening in her chest, from which a screaminghawk carried away a piece of flesh…No.Think.This is a dream.Slowly a sense of reality penetrated Magda’s mind; slowly, slowly.Shefelt herself pull free, free of the invisible bonds, raised her arms, jerked herself up, and found herselfsitting bolt upright in her cold sleeping bag.Her heart was still pounding with the nightmare.She heardJaelle cry out, and reached over to shake her freemate awake.“Shaya, Shaya, are you having a nightmare too?”“Zandru’s hells,” Jaelle whispered, “it was a dream, a dream, I was only dreaming—Aquilara’ssorceresses.They were torturing Rafaella, and they had chained me up to Rafi’s big rryl and weremaking me play ballads on it, and she was screaming—ah, how she was screaming, like a girl of fourteenin childbirth—and the demons all kept yelling, ‘Louder, play louder, so we cannot hear her scream… ’ ”She shuddered and buried her head against Magda’s shoulder.Magda stroked Jaelle’s soft hair, comprehending what had happened.Even the themes in thenightmares they had shared had been all but identical.She wondered if Camilla and the others were suffering nightmare too.She was almost afraid to try tosleep again.“I thought this place was guarded,” she said, “that even the names of that witch and herpeople could not be spoken here… ”“I think that was only while we were sick and exhausted,” Jaelle ventured.“Now that we are wellagain, and there are decisions to be made, nightmares can move in our minds, those demons—” shehesitated, said tentatively “… torturing us?”But Magda could not attend to the question.A wave of horror swept through her, making herphysically ill with its impact.She was lying on the ground, chained hand and foot at the center of a ring of robed andhooded figures… no; they were men, scarred bandits, wielding knives, naked, their gross hairybodies and erect phalluses touching her everywhere, intruding into her everywhere, and theywere like razors, like knives shearing off her breasts, invading her womb, tearing herwomanhood from her.One of them, an evil hawk-faced man with a scar, held up the body of anaked, bleeding child, a fetus half-formed, shrieking, “Here is the Heir to Hastur that she may neverbear!” Slowly, slowly, the face of the bandit changed, became, not gross and scarred, but noble,pale, detached, the face of the sorceress Leonie… No; it was a man’s face.The face of the regent,Lorill Hastur.“How can I acknowledge as my own child a girl who has been so treated, so scarred?”he asked coldly, and turned away …“Magda!” Jaelle clutched at her in horror; Magda freed herself from the terrible paralysis ofnightmare.Once before during the waking of her own laran she had become a part of Camilla’snightmares.A dreadful time; and the worst of it had been Camilla’s horror and shame, that she could notbarricade these memories and horrors from her friend and lover.She bent over Camilla and shook her awake.“You were crying out in your sleep, love.Were you having a bad dream?”Magda had seen this before: how Camilla struggled up from the paralysis of terror.With shakinghands, she wiped the sweat of nightmare from her face, fighting to compose herself.“Aye,” she whispered at last.“My thanks for waking me, oath-sisters.” She knew, and she knewthey knew, what she had been dreaming.But she could trust them to ask no questions, and she wasgrateful.The next morning, Cholayna’s color was good, and her breathing so easy that the women who cameto bring the breakfast porridge dismantled the steam tent and took it away.Cholayna sat up and dressedherself, all except her boots, saying she felt perfectly well.But Magda knew this raised again the question they had been avoiding while Cholayna’s life was indanger, and she found herself dreading the debate.Cholayna could face no more rough weather andexposure.Yet how likely was it that she would agree to go back, and could she turn over the search for Lexieto Vanessa and Magda? Would she? Magda doubted it.So they carefully avoided the subject, and Magda felt the enforced silence fraying away at hernerves.It was a fine bright day, and Vanessa went out to walk along the cliffs, trying to scan out a routeahead.Magda walked with her a little way.“Tell me, Vanessa, did you have bad dreams last night?”Vanessa nodded, but she turned her face away, her cheeks crimson, and did not volunteer to saywhat she had dreamed, and Magda did not ask.They were under attack again; the Sisterhood of theWise was most effectively guarded by the Sisterhood of the Dark or so it seemed… or could it be thatthe two were inextricably intertwined? Her own nightmare and Jaelle’s had come from their own innerdemons and flaws, not from anything anyone had imposed on them from the outside.But Camilla? This was no nightmare based on something she had done wrong, no backgroundof mistake or cruelty or omission coming back to haunt her, as with Jaelle and Magda, butsomething done to an innocent child who had no way deserved any of it…Jaelle had asked the unanswerable question: Why do the wicked flourish ? But even the cristoforoshad no answer to that question; they framed the question itself in poetic language and called it a mysteryof their God [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.She had known all along somehow that it was Lexie lying there helpless, andthat she had been responsible for the act or omission that had landed Lexie there.She struggled against her bonds, but the hawks went on screaming.She could see what they weredoing now; with every surge upward of the flame, the hawks swirled, borne on the currents of fire, andswooped over Lexie’s inert figure, and with every downward swoop they tore into her naked flesh,carrying away great dripping hunks of blood and skin, while Lexie screamed, terrible screams thatreminded Magda horribly of the time she and Jaelle had been marooned in a cave with rising floodwater,and Jaelle had miscarried Peter Haldane’s child.She had been delirious, not fully aware what washappening much of the time, and in her delirium she had screamed like that, as if she were being tornasunder, and Magda had not been able to help her.They had come so close to dying there.And now it was Lexie screaming.And it is my fault; she was competing with me, and that washow she got into this.Again Magda strained against her bonds to rush forward to Lexie, but there was a curious blue fire inthe air, and in that evil glow she could see the face of the black sorceress Aquilara.“Yes, you always want to ease your own conscience by being so ready to help other people.Butnow it is your task to learn detachment; that her troubles are not of your making, and that she must takethe consequences of her own actions,” Aquilara explained callously.It sounded so rational, soreasonable, and yet the screams tore at her as if every stroke of the razor talons and cruel bloody beaksfell on her own heart.“Yes, that is what they are doing,” Aquilara went on explaining.“They will tear and tear at that falseand sentimental conscience of yours which you think of as your heart, until it is gone from your breast.”And Magda, looking down, saw a great bleeding hole opening in her chest, from which a screaminghawk carried away a piece of flesh…No.Think.This is a dream.Slowly a sense of reality penetrated Magda’s mind; slowly, slowly.Shefelt herself pull free, free of the invisible bonds, raised her arms, jerked herself up, and found herselfsitting bolt upright in her cold sleeping bag.Her heart was still pounding with the nightmare.She heardJaelle cry out, and reached over to shake her freemate awake.“Shaya, Shaya, are you having a nightmare too?”“Zandru’s hells,” Jaelle whispered, “it was a dream, a dream, I was only dreaming—Aquilara’ssorceresses.They were torturing Rafaella, and they had chained me up to Rafi’s big rryl and weremaking me play ballads on it, and she was screaming—ah, how she was screaming, like a girl of fourteenin childbirth—and the demons all kept yelling, ‘Louder, play louder, so we cannot hear her scream… ’ ”She shuddered and buried her head against Magda’s shoulder.Magda stroked Jaelle’s soft hair, comprehending what had happened.Even the themes in thenightmares they had shared had been all but identical.She wondered if Camilla and the others were suffering nightmare too.She was almost afraid to try tosleep again.“I thought this place was guarded,” she said, “that even the names of that witch and herpeople could not be spoken here… ”“I think that was only while we were sick and exhausted,” Jaelle ventured.“Now that we are wellagain, and there are decisions to be made, nightmares can move in our minds, those demons—” shehesitated, said tentatively “… torturing us?”But Magda could not attend to the question.A wave of horror swept through her, making herphysically ill with its impact.She was lying on the ground, chained hand and foot at the center of a ring of robed andhooded figures… no; they were men, scarred bandits, wielding knives, naked, their gross hairybodies and erect phalluses touching her everywhere, intruding into her everywhere, and theywere like razors, like knives shearing off her breasts, invading her womb, tearing herwomanhood from her.One of them, an evil hawk-faced man with a scar, held up the body of anaked, bleeding child, a fetus half-formed, shrieking, “Here is the Heir to Hastur that she may neverbear!” Slowly, slowly, the face of the bandit changed, became, not gross and scarred, but noble,pale, detached, the face of the sorceress Leonie… No; it was a man’s face.The face of the regent,Lorill Hastur.“How can I acknowledge as my own child a girl who has been so treated, so scarred?”he asked coldly, and turned away …“Magda!” Jaelle clutched at her in horror; Magda freed herself from the terrible paralysis ofnightmare.Once before during the waking of her own laran she had become a part of Camilla’snightmares.A dreadful time; and the worst of it had been Camilla’s horror and shame, that she could notbarricade these memories and horrors from her friend and lover.She bent over Camilla and shook her awake.“You were crying out in your sleep, love.Were you having a bad dream?”Magda had seen this before: how Camilla struggled up from the paralysis of terror.With shakinghands, she wiped the sweat of nightmare from her face, fighting to compose herself.“Aye,” she whispered at last.“My thanks for waking me, oath-sisters.” She knew, and she knewthey knew, what she had been dreaming.But she could trust them to ask no questions, and she wasgrateful.The next morning, Cholayna’s color was good, and her breathing so easy that the women who cameto bring the breakfast porridge dismantled the steam tent and took it away.Cholayna sat up and dressedherself, all except her boots, saying she felt perfectly well.But Magda knew this raised again the question they had been avoiding while Cholayna’s life was indanger, and she found herself dreading the debate.Cholayna could face no more rough weather andexposure.Yet how likely was it that she would agree to go back, and could she turn over the search for Lexieto Vanessa and Magda? Would she? Magda doubted it.So they carefully avoided the subject, and Magda felt the enforced silence fraying away at hernerves.It was a fine bright day, and Vanessa went out to walk along the cliffs, trying to scan out a routeahead.Magda walked with her a little way.“Tell me, Vanessa, did you have bad dreams last night?”Vanessa nodded, but she turned her face away, her cheeks crimson, and did not volunteer to saywhat she had dreamed, and Magda did not ask.They were under attack again; the Sisterhood of theWise was most effectively guarded by the Sisterhood of the Dark or so it seemed… or could it be thatthe two were inextricably intertwined? Her own nightmare and Jaelle’s had come from their own innerdemons and flaws, not from anything anyone had imposed on them from the outside.But Camilla? This was no nightmare based on something she had done wrong, no backgroundof mistake or cruelty or omission coming back to haunt her, as with Jaelle and Magda, butsomething done to an innocent child who had no way deserved any of it…Jaelle had asked the unanswerable question: Why do the wicked flourish ? But even the cristoforoshad no answer to that question; they framed the question itself in poetic language and called it a mysteryof their God [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]