| You will understand when we get thereI want my good friend Erlein di Senzio to see somethingAnd I suppose Sertino had better join us too
"I wouldn't miss this for all the blue wine in Astibar," said the pudgy Certandan wizardIt was interesting, at another time it might even have been amusing, to note what a healthy distance he continued to keep between himself and the PrinceThe words he spoke were facetious, but his tone was deadly serious
"Come on then," said Alessan brusquelyHe turned his horse past Erlein's, almost brushing against the other man, and started west out of the passThe ones he had named began to followDucas spoke a few terse commands to Arkin, too low for Devin to hearArkin hesitated for a moment, clearly torn, wanting to come with his leaderBut then, without speaking, he turned his horse the other wayWhen Devin glanced back a moment later, he saw that the outlaws were rifling the Barbadians' bodies for weapons
He turned to look over his shoulder again a few moments later but they were in open country by then, with the hills in shadow to the south and east and a grassy plain rolling north of themThe entrance to the pass could no longer even be seenArkin and the others would be gone from within it soon, Devin knew, leaving only the deadOnly the dead for the scavengers; one of them killed by his own sword, and another one a child
The old man lay on his bed in the darkness of an Ember Night and the always darkness of his own afflictionFar from sleep, he listened to sale gucci handbags the wind outside and to the woman in the other room clicking her prayer beads and intoning the same litany over and over
"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our soulsEanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls
His hearing was very goodIt was a compensation most of the time, but sometimes, as tonight, with the woman praying like a demented thing, it was a curse of a particularly insidious kindShe was using her old beads; he could tell the thin, quick sound even through the wall separating their chambersHe had made her a new ring of beads of rare, polished tanchwood three years ago for her naming dayMost of the time she used that ring, but not on the Ember DaysThen she went back to her old beads and she prayed aloud for most of three days and nights
In the earliest years here he had slept those three nights in the barn with the two boys who had brought him here, so much did her unceasing litany disturb himBut he was old now, his bones creaked and ached on windy nights such as this, so he kept to his own bed under piled blankets and endured her voice as best he could
"Eanna love us always, Adaon preserve us from all perils, Morian guard our souls and shelter us
The Ember Days were a time of contrition and atonement, but they were also a time when one was to count and give thanks for one's giftsHe was a cynical man, for sufficient and varied reasons, but he would not have called himself unreligious, and he would not, in fact, have said he'd lived a life fendi big bags unblessed, despite the blindness of almost two decadesHe had lived much of his life in wealth and near to powerThe length of his days was a blessing, and so too was the lifelong grace of his hands with woodOnly a form of play at first, a diversion, it had become something more than that in the years since they had come here
There was also his other gift of skill, though few people knew of thatHad it been otherwise he would never have been able to shape a quiet life in this highland village, and a quiet life was essential because he was hiding
The very fact of his survival on the long, sightless journey all those years ago was a blessing of a special kindHe was under no illusions: he would never have survived without the loyalty of his two young servantsThe only ones they had allowed to stay with himThe only ones who had wanted to stay
They weren't young nor were they servants any longerThey were farmers on land they owned with himNo longer sleeping on the front-room floor in their first small farmhouse nor out in the barn as they had in the earliest years, but in their own homes with wives beside them and children near byLying in darkness he offered thanks for that, as gratefully as for anything he had ever been given himself
Either of them would have let him sleep in their home these three nights, to escape the unending drone of the woman in the other room, but he would not presume to ask so muchNot on the Ember Nights, not on any nightHe had his own sense of what was appropriate, and replica prada besides, he liked his own bed more and more with the passing years
"Eanna love us as her children, Adaon preserve us as his children
He wasn't, clearly, going to be able to fall asleepHe thought about getting up to polish a staff or a bow, but he knew Menna would hear him, and he knew she would make him pay for profaning an Ember Night with laborWatery porridge, sour wine, his slippers cruelly moved from where he laid them down
"They were in my way," she would say when he complainedThen, when fires were allowed again: burnt meat, undrinkable khav, bitter breadMenna had her own ways of letting him know what mattered to herAfter all the years they had their tacit understandings much as any old couple did, though of course he had never married her
He knew who he was, and what was appropriate, even in this fallen state, far from home, from the memory of wealth or powerHere on this small farm-holding bought with gold fearfully hidden on his person during that long, blind journey seventeen years ago, sure that a murderous pursuit was riding close behind
He had survived, though, and the boysComing to this village on a day in autumn long ago: strangers arriving in a dark timeA time when so many people had died and so many others were brutally uprooted all across the Palm in the wake of the Tyrants' comingBut the three of them had somehow endured, had even managed to make the land put forth a living for them in good yearsIn Certando's bad years latterly he had had to deplete his dwindled gucci ladies watch reserve of gold, but what else was it for, at this point?
Really, what else would it be for? Menna and the two boys, they were no longer boys, of course, were his heirsThey were all he could claim as family nowThey were all he had, if one didn't count the dreams that still came in his nights
He was a cynical man, having seen a great deal in the days before his darkness came, and after, in a different way of seeing, but he was not so burdened by irony as to defeat wisdomHe knew that exiles always dreamt of home and that the sorely wronged never really forgotHe had no illusions about being unique in this
"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us from, Triad save us!"
Menna fell silent, very abruptlyAnd for the same reason the old man sat suddenly upright in bed, wincing at a sharp protest from his spineThey had both heard it: a sound outside in the nightIn the Ember Night, when no one should be abroad
Listening carefully he caught it again: the sound, delicate and faint, of pipes playing in the darkness outside, passing by their wallsConcentrating, the old man could make out footstepsThen, his heart beating dangerously fast, he swung out of bed as quickly as he could and began to dress
"It is the dead!" Menna wailed in the far room"Adaon preserve us from vengeful ghosts, from all harmEanna love us! The dead have come for usMorian of Portals guard our souls!"
Despite his agitation the old man paused to note that Menna, even in her fear, still included him in prayersFor a moment he was genuinely fake rolex swiss m |
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