[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Stasheff, Christopher - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived (v1.0) (html).html
rushed on. "Dost thou wish to make amends for the lives thou hast taken?"
"Thou dost speak nonsense!" The witch spat. "A life is beyond price; thou canst
not make amends for the taking of it!"
"True," Rod said thoughtfully, "but there is restitution."
The whetted glance sliced into him, freezing almost as effectively as the Evil
Eye.
Then, though, the gaze lightened as the witch slowly grinned. "Ah, then!" She
threw her head back and cackled. It was a long laugh, and when it faded Agatha
wiped her eyes, nodding. "Eh! I had pondered the why of thy coming; for none
come to old Agatha lest they have a wish, a yearning that may not be answered
by any other. And this is thine, is it not? That the folk of the land be in danger;
they stand in need of old Agatha's power! And they have sent thee to beg me the
use of it!"
Her gaunt body shook with another spasm of cackling. She wheezed into a
crooning calm, wiping her nose with a long bony finger. "Eh, eh! Child! Am I, a
beldam of threescore years and more, to be cozened by the veriest, most innocent
child? Eh!" And she was off again.
Rod frowned; this was getting out of hand. "I wouldn't exactly call it'cozening.' "
The witch's laughter chopped off. "Wouldst thou not?" she spat. "But thou wilt
ask aid of me, aye! And wilt seek to give me no recompense, nay!" She
transferred her gaze to Gwen. "And thou wilt do as he bids thee, wilt thou not?"
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...20Warlock%2003%20-%20King%20Kobold%20Revived.html (171 of 343)20-2-2006 21:32:24
Stasheff, Christopher - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived (v1.0) (html).html
"Nay!" Gwen cried, affronted. "I have come of my own, to beg of thee& "
"Of thine own!" The witch glared. "Hast thou no stripes to thy back, no scars to
thy breasts where their torturers have burned thee? Hast thou not known the pain
of their envy and hate, that thou shouldst come, unforced, uncajoled, to beg help
for them?"
"I have." Gwen felt a strange calm descend over her. "Twice I was scourged, and
thrice tortured, four times bound to a stake for the burning; and I must needs
thank the Wee Folk, my good guardians, that I live now to speak to thee. Aye, I
ha' known the knotted whip of their fear; though never so deeply as thou. Yet& "
The old witch nodded, wondering. "Yet, you pity them."
"Aye." Gwen lowered her eyes, clasping her hands tight in her lap. "Indeed, I do
pity them." Her eyes leaped up to lock with Agatha's. "For their fear is the
barbed thong that lashes us, their fear of the great dark that stands behind such
powers as ours, the dark of unknown, and the unguessable fate that we bring
them. 'Tis they who must grope for life and for good in midnightmare, they who
never ha' known the sound of love-thoughts, the joy of a moonlit flight. Ought
we not, then, to pity them?"
Agatha nodded slowly. Her old eyes filmed over, staring off into a life now
distant in time. "So I had thought once, in my girlhood& "
"Pity them, then," said Gwen, sawing hard at the reins of her eagerness. "Pity
them, and& "
"And forgive them?" Agatha snapped back to the present, shaking her head
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...20Warlock%2003%20-%20King%20Kobold%20Revived.html (172 of 343)20-2-2006 21:32:24
Stasheff, Christopher - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived (v1.0) (html).html
slowly, a bitter smile on her gash of a mouth. "In my heart, I might forgive them.
The stripes and the blows, the burning needles, the chains and the flaming
splinters under my nails aye, even this might I forgive them& "
Her eyes glazed, gazing back down the years. "But the abuse of my body, my
fair, slender girl's body and my ripe-blossomed woman's body, all the long years,
my most tender flesh and the most intimate part of my heart, the tearing and
rending of that heart, again and again, to feed them, their craving, insensible
hunger& no!" Her voice was low and guttural, gurgling acid, a black-diamond
drill. "No, nay! That, I may never forgive them! Their greed and their lust, their
slavering hunger! Forever and ever they came, to come in and take me, and hurl
me away; to come for my trembling flesh then spurn me away, crying,
'Whore!' Again and again, by one and by five, knowing I would not, could not,
turn them away; and therefore they came and they came& Nay! That, I may
never forgive them!"
Gwen's heart broke open and flowed; and it must have shown in her face, for
Agatha transfixed her with a shimmering glare. "Pity them if you must," she
grated, "but never have pity for me!"
She held Gwen's eyes for a moment, then turned back to the caldron, taking up
her paddle again. "You will tell me that this was no fault of theirs," she muttered,
"any more than it was of mine, that their hunger forced them to me as truly as
mine constrained me to welcome them."
Her head lifted slowly, the eyes narrowing. "Or didst thou not know? Galen, the
wizard of the Dark Tower. He it was who should have answered my hunger with
his own. The greatest witch and the greatest warlock of the kingdom together, is
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kru...20Warlock%2003%20-%20King%20Kobold%20Revived.html (173 of 343)20-2-2006 21:32:24
Stasheff, Christopher - Warlock 03 - King Kobold Revived (v1.0) (html).html
it not fitting? But he alone of all men would never come to me, the swine! Oh, he
will tell you he hath too much righteousness to father a child into a Hell-world
like this; yet the truth of it is, he fears the blame of that child he might father.
Coward! Churl! Swine!"
She dug at the caldron, spitting and cursing. "Hell-spawned, thrice misbegotten,
bastard mockery of a man! Him" she finished in a harsh whisper "I hate most
of all!"
The bony, gnarled old hands clutched the paddle so tight it seemed the wood
must break.
Then she was clutching the slimy wooden paddle to her sunken dried breast. Her
shoulders shook with dry sobs. "My child," she murmured. "O my fair, unborn,
sweet child!"
The sobs diminished and stilled. Then, slowly, the witch's eyes came up again.
"Or didst thou not know?" She smiled harshly, an eldritch gleam in her rheumy
yellowed eye. "He it is who doth guard my portal, who doth protect me my
unborn child, Harold, my son, my familiar! So he was, and so he will ever be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl