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corkscrew from her pocket, Takara yanked the cork from the
first bottle. "Have some?"
Gerrard shrugged, taking the bottle in hand. "No
wineglasses?"
"Don't get uppity," Takara replied, already working over a
second bottle. "How about you, Tahngarth? I can't remember if
minotaurs like this stuff-"
"Not in such piddling quantities," Tahngarth said,
striding across the room to grasp the opened bottle. He smiled
ruefully and took a long draw. "Gerrard will owe me a bottle
from his case, when it arrives," he said dryly.
Takara laughed. "Then I'll owe you one, also." She lifted
her own bottle. Only after a deep draught did she seem to
notice Karn, standing like another piece of furniture near the
window. "I don't imagine silver golems-"
"You are right," interrupted Karn, his voice a quiet
rumble like distant thunder. "I require a different sort of...
lubrication."
That brought laughter from everyone except the golem.
Gerrard smiled sadly and slouched into a low chair, his
wine bottle hanging from his hand. He shook his head. "How did
we ever end up here?"
Takara took a seat opposite him and drew a deep breath. "A
dangerous question. I asked it often when I was a prisoner on
Rath. The answer always came down to betrayal. I had been
betrayed."
After a long swallow, Gerrard said, "Betrayal. Yes, that's
awful stuff. Someone betrayed you into Volrath's hands, and
then your father betrayed Sisay to get you back. It's the
filthiest business-betrayal."
"It was my brother," Takara said, her eyes focused beyond
the room. Embers smoldered in her gaze. "He betrayed me."
"Your brother? I didn't realize you had a brother."
"Ha! Of course you didn't," she said acidly. "I never talk
of him. He wasn't really even my brother, only a usurping
orphan. He was always jealous of me. He was always trying to
steal what was mine. He betrayed me, cut me off from my
father, destroyed my whole life, and sold me into slavery."
Shaking his head in compassionate outrage, Gerrard said,
"That's horrible. You talk about your hatred, how it makes you
strong. Now I see just how much reason you have to hate."
She stared directly at him, and her eyes were piercing,
almost predatory. "So, how did you end up here? Betrayal?"
A speculative smile crossed Gerrard's face. "Well, there
was that bastard Xcric-" he gently shook away the thought-
"but, no. I'm through with blaming everyone else for my
problems. I'm here because of my own failings, not someone
else's."
Takara's look only intensified. "What failings?"
Gerrard laughed heavily, waving the question away. "You
haven't time to hear all my failings." He took a long drink.
"Well, then tell me about the big one," Takara replied.
"Tell me the first big mistake you made, the one that set up
all the others."
"I don't know if there was just one."
"Oh, yes, there was. Every chain of misery has its first
link, the one that binds you to all the others. What was it
for you, Gerrard?"
He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and an
even deeper draw, and said, "Of all the regrets I have, the
deepest, the earliest, would be my father's death."
"Your father's death?" Takara said, seeming somewhat
surprised and strangely angered. "What happened?"
"My brother-" Gerrard hissed- "gods, another wicked
brother. He killed my father. He raised an army and marched on
my father's village and killed my father and mother-the whole
tribe."
Takara leaned forward, as if eager to hear the next bit.
"Why?"
It was Gerrard's turn to stare into distant spaces. "He
wanted to kill me. He killed the rest because he wanted to
kill me.... He tried to kill me. He hated me...."
Again, the single-word question. "Why?"
A bleary look was entering Gerrard's eyes, a sad muzziness
that only thickened with his next drink. "Well, you see, I
saved his life."
"You saved his life?"
"It was during his coming-of-age ceremony-a deadly climb
up a nearby precipice. He was stuck, exhausted. He could go no
farther. He was going to die. The tribe would have just let
him die, but I wouldn't. I climbed up and carried him down. I
saved his life."
"And for this, he hated you?"
"Well, yes, because in saving his life, I disrupted his
coming-of-age ceremony. He could never be considered a full
man from then on. He could never inherit the sidar's rule."
Takara's brow lowered. "Because of what you did, your
brother could not inherit your father's kingdom? He could not
ever rule?"
"Yes," Gerrard admitted heavily.
Sitting back in her chair, Takara took a drink, though her
gaze remained on Gerrard. "I can understand his anger.
You stole his future. Whether you meant to or not, you
took his inheritance."
"Yes, but after that, he came to take it back-no, not even
to take it back, to destroy it so no one could have it. He
murdered our father and burned the village. He took my Legacy-
which was never his-and scattered it to the four winds. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]