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twisted around his ankles. Dejectedly he sank down on a horan root and dropped
his head into his hands. He drew in a deep breath and eventually leaned back
against the trunk, hands clasped loosely between his knees, his face haggard
and unhappy.  I did something, he said hoarsely.  I finally did something.
Restless black eyes roamed over the sleeping countryside, then he smiled.
Sitting up straight, he summoned a late-moving lusuq so that it shot out of
the night on whirring wings and settled on his outstretched forefinger.
Moonlight shimmered on its glassy iridescent wings and glittered off the spiny
carapace. He lifted his hand to eye-level and laughed triumphantly.
 Small friend. Deadly small friend. He lifted his hand out away from him,
ready to hurl the insect to the ground and crush it with his heel. Then he
hesitated.
 It s not your fault, small one. You only follow your nature. Still holding
the lusuq quiescent on his finger, he pushed himself back on his feet and
strolled on down the road.  For the first time in my life, farenti lusuq, I
was the doer not the pillow they beat. Ay-yag, lusuq, what s it feel like,
having the power to kill who you choose?
He halted, startled by the dark broth beginning to brew up in him.  So many
years, he mused, kicking on through the sand.  Sheman. Gryman. Siani, feed
the horses. Siani, fix the yara. Despise me. Stay away from the women, slime.
Don t touch my food; go eat with the whores, Siani. Your ma was a whore,
Siani. Do this, sheman. Do that. Even Marya, whining  Love me, Siani, love
me. Love!
He smiled suddenly, his eyes glittering in the double moons light like the
chitinous armor of the bug on his finger.  Paullo. A few chigra in his bed& .
He giggled. Looking down at the lusuq, he whispered,  Farenti lusuq, how d you
like to stick your tail in Paullo s face? A stray cloud passed over Aab s
face so that the night darkened suddenly. He sighed.  Talle d purg, lusuq.
He lifted his hand to flick the insect away.
A small stone came sailing out of the darkness and caromed off his shoulder.
He wheeled.
Charoh skipped out of the black shadow under the trees. He stood in the
middle of the road and laughed at Tarnsian.
 Sheman, he chanted in a high shrill voice.  Sheman wearing skirts. Wait
till I tell, wait till& 
Panic spurted through the empath. He still wore the abba and sandals
betraying his complicity in Zavar s plot to free the dream-singer. Without
stopping to think, he flipped his forefinger, casting the stickyfoot straight
into Charoh s face, and stood gasping, trembling, yelling with his
mind,Killllll & .
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The lusuq sank the barbs on its six feet deep into the boy s flesh, then
drove the poison sting in its long flexible tail into his cheek again and
again. Finally it jerked itself loose, whirred up into the air, and darted
off.
The boy screamed once as the sting sank in the first time, then collapsed in
a writhing heap on the sand. Tarnsian stared down at him, shattered by the
sickening mixture of hate, fear, triumph that stirred in him. At the same
time, like the pleasant flaw from rich red meat, the boy s savage pain flooded
him, woke in him a terrible joy and a salty taste at the back of his throat
like the beginnings of thirst.
With a last breathy cry, the boy straightened out rigid as a metal rod. He
held this strained position for a moment, then his body collapsed in on
itself. It lay on the ground like a doll with the stuffing fallen out. It. Not
he. Not anymore. Tarnsian felt the strain dissipate inside his body. His
shoulders lowered from their taut defensive lift, his spine curved, his face
softened. It, he thought. It. A thing. He touched the thing with his toe and
it resisted the pressure soggily.
Licking dry lips, he knelt beside the body. Its face was beginning to swell.
He touched its cold skin with revulsion. Put his hand on its shoulder; it was
like touching wood. He shuddered and wiped his sweaty palm on the abba.  I ve
got to get him back. Can t leave him here. He ran the hand that hadn t
touched the body through his hair.  Can t touch it& Paullo! The name exploded
out of him.  He ll kill 
Fear nauseated him. Hands pressed against his eyes, he struggled to control
the bitter fluxing of his emotion. Breathing heavily, he lowered his hands
onto his knees and licked dry lips. Eyes on the thing in front of him, he ran
through his mind all the torment, all the mockery, all the petty cruelties
he d suffered from this boy. A cold hard satisfaction bloomed somewhere deep
down inside him, deep where it was dark and powerful. Slowly he felt power
beating inside him like dark moth wings.
Tarnsian stood up and walked swiftly away, grains of sand pattering down on
the road as his moving legs jarred them off the swinging abba& .
The blackness closed in again, the passive consciousness of the viewer
sinking gently into the comforting nothingness& .
11
The suns were high when she woke. Tarnsian came in with a bucket of water and
some rags. He cut her free and shoved them into her hands.  Clean up this
mess, he grunted.
Pausing in the doorway, he said,  We re rolling in three minutes. Throw the
water out the door when you finish.
She watched him stump out of the caravan, then used the water first to wash
herself.  Ai-Aschla, she gasped as she touched her mangled face. Hobbling
painfully across the narrow space between the walls, she stooped and looked
into the mirror.
Her face was a grotesque lumpy mask with black eyes extending in purple glory
over her cheekbones, nose a smashed, distorted purple lump, upper lip gashed
deeply and swollen to three times its normal size.  Aschla s claws! He sure
made a mess of me. She touched her nose and winced as pain stabbed into her
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brain, then looked back into the mirror.  Ahai! I m ugly. Shuddering, she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]