time for questions--we must go before the Guard gets here. You,
Master Xiphias, must return home. You're a fine swordsman, but
you can't possibly protect me from a squad of troopers with slug
guns. You, Your Eminence, must go to Maytera Mint. Don't bother
filling your belly. If--'
'Girl come!' Oreb flew to Silk's shoulder, fluttered his wings, and
added, 'Come quick!'
For a wasted second, Silk stared at Remora, searching for signs of
Mucor in his face. Hyacinth was in sight before he heard the rapid
pattering of her bare feet on the path of false gems and saw her,
mouth open and dark eyes bright with tears above the rosy
confusion of a gossamer dishabille, her hair a midnight cloud behind
her as she ran.
She stopped. It was as if the sight of him had suspended her in
amber. 'You're here! You're really here!'
By Thelxiepeia's spell she was in his arms, suffocating him with
kisses. 'I didn't--I knew you couldn't come, but I had to. Had to, or
I'd never know. I'd always think--'
He kissed her, clumsy but unembarrassed, trying to say by his kiss
that he, too, had been forced by something in himself stronger than
himself.
The pool and the miniature vale that contained it, always dark,
grew darker still. Looking up after countless kisses, he saw idling
fish of mottled gold and silver, black, white, and red, hanging in air
above the goddess's upraised hand, and for the first time noticed
light streaming from a lamp of silver filigree in the branches of a
stunted tree. 'Where did they go?' he asked.
'Was--somebody--else here?' She gasped for breath and smiled,
giving him sweeter pain than he had ever known.
'His Eminence and a fencing master.' Silk felt that he should look
around him, but would not take his eyes from hers.
'They must have done the polite thing,' she kissed him again, 'and
left quietly.'
He nodded, unable to speak.
'So should we. I've got a room here. Did I tell you?'
He shook his head.
'A suite, really. They're all suites, but they call them rooms. It's a
game they play, being simple, pretending to be a country inn.' She
sank to her knees with a dancer's grace, her hand still upon his arm.
'Will you kneel by the pool here with me? I want to look at myself,
and I want to look at you, too, at the same time.' Abruptly. the tears
overflowed. 'I want to look at _us_.'
He knelt beside her.
'I knew you couldn't come,' a tear fell. creating a tiny ripple, 'so I
have to see us both. See you beside me.'
As in the ball court (though perhaps only because he had
experienced it there) it seemed that he stood outside time.
And when they breathed again and turned to kiss, it seemed to
him that their reflections remained as they had been in the quiet
water of the pool, invisible but forever present. 'We--I have to
go,' he told her. It had taken an enormous effort to say it. 'They
know I'm here, or they soon will if they don't already. They'll
send troopers to kill me, and if you're with me, they'll kill you, too.'
She laughed, and her soft laughter was sweeter than any music.
'Do you know what I went through to get here? What Blood will do
to me if he finds out I took a floater? By the time I got onto the hill,
past the checkpoints and sentries--Are you sick? You don't look at
all well.'
'I'm only tired.' Silk sat back on his heels. 'When I thought about
having to run again, I felt... It will pass.' He believed it as soon as
he had said it, himself persuaded by the effort he had made to
compel her belief.
She rose, and gave him her hand. 'By the time I got to Ermine's, I
thought I'd been abram to come at all, drowning in a glass of water.
I didn't even look in here,' happy again, she smiled, 'because I
didn't want to see there wasn't anyone waiting. I didn't want to be
reminded of what a putt I'd been. I got my room and started getting
ready for bed, and then I thought--I thought--'
He embraced her; from a perch over the filigree lamp, Oreb
croaked, 'Poor Silk!'
'What if he's there? What if he's _really down there_, and I'm up
here? I'd unpinned my hair and taken off my makeup, but I dived
down the stairs and ran through the sellaria, and you were here, and
it's only a dream but it's the best dream that ever was.'
He coughed. This time the blood was fresh and red. He turned
aside and spat it into a bush with lavender flowers and emerald
leaves and felt himself falling, unable to stop.
He lay on moss beside the pool. She was gone; but their reflections
remained in the water, fixed forever.
When he opened his eyes again, she was back with an old man
whose name he had forgotten, the waiter who had offered him
wine in the sellaria, the one who had told him of Remora, the
footman who had opened the door, and others. They rolled him
onto something and picked him up, so that he seemed to float
somewhere below the level of their waists, looking up at the belly
of the vast dark thing that had come between the bright skylands
and the glass roof. His hand found hers. She smiled down at him
and he smiled too, so that they journeyed together, as they had
on the deadcoach in his dream, in the companionable silence of
two who have overcome obstacles to be together, and have no
need of noisy words, but rest--each in the other.
Chapter 8 -- Peace
