The Towers Of the Sunset (37 page)

THE WOMAN IN black leathers stands in the late-afternoon sun, watching as the peak that is Freyja turns into a glistening sword raised against the towers of the sunset. Her black hair is uncovered in the chill wind that passes for a summer breeze on the Roof of the World.

Beside her stands another woman, younger, in green leathers, still holding a dispatch case.

“They’ve already begun to change the world…” muses the black-haired woman.

“Begun?” asks the silver-haired Marshalle.

“Begun,” confirms the
Marshall. “No one else could do it besides those two. In that, Ryessa was right.” She shrugs. “But they’re still fighting each other.”

“The dispatch doesn’t-”

“Unless Creslin is more understanding than I was, he’ll destroy both of them.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Believe it or not. He has that much power.” The
Marshall remains studying the ice needle until it is cloaked in the early moonlight.

SAND AND SEA and birds, and a black boulder rising above the surf-how many hundreds of places are there with such a combination? Creslin does not know exactly, but one of them is where Megaera is.

With the briefest of head shakes, he places the hammer and chisel in the chest, which he stores in the third guest house. He has waited and waited, and knows that further waiting will solve nothing. He pauses, reflecting that he has felt that way before and it has always led to pain.

This time he shrugs-with sadness-and heads for the washroom.

“You have to be clean?”

How else? He laughs bitterly as the cold water flows over him and as he uses the harsh soap to scrub away stone grit, sweat, and dirt. Little enough governing or wizardry has he done while he has recovered, and only a trace of stonework, and too much thinking. Still, the captives from Hamor have completed the walls along the walkways, as well as the interior walls and roofs of all three guest houses. The Black Holding is coming to resemble the plans that Klerris had once laid out on the keep table. The only problem is that the two people for whom it has been built are unable to live anywhere close to each other.

Creslin steps away from the cold water and snaps the tap closed. As he dries himself with the worn and frayed towel he has carted across Candar and beyond, his lips twist into a wry smile. He has a title he never wanted, a land to build that he never asked for, and he loves a woman for whom he walked the winter snows of Westhorns to escape marrying. Yet he married her for convenience.

And for lust, he reminds himself. He cannot deny how much he wants Megaera. He rips his thoughts away from images of the red-haired lady before too-graphic fantasies appear in his mind.

Lust or not, the time has come for the two of them to resolve their destiny. “Resolve our destiny?” he thinks. “How pretentious!” He snorts as he pulls on his trousers.

After donning the short-sleeved shirt and his boots, his hair still damp, he begins to walk down the dusty road. He hopes that one day the road will be a highway stretching from one end of Reduce to the other. For the wizards are right about one thing. Good highways knit people and trade together. But that will come later, assuming that Megaera will accept him. If Megaera will ever accept him.

He continues walking, his thoughts searching the winds before him. The first beach he checks has birds and sands, but neither the black boulder nor Megaera. The second has a black boulder and birds, but no Megaera.

Five more beaches and six kays later, as he scrambles down a skree of rock, he sees pale gray on a pale black boulder, pale gray surmounted by flame-red hair.

“Megaera…” His heart pounds faster.

Damn you… best-betrothed… His feet slip under the impact of the unspoken words, but he recovers with only the faintest of staggers, hitting the slanted sands under the eastern cliffs at a half-run, his booted feet digging into the softer sand above where the gentle waves cascade in.

A coolness flows within him, the cool, shivering feel of fear. Creslin slows to a walk. Fear? Not his fear, but why fear?

… because you are stronger than I am, except in will… because I will always be forced to submit. My body cannot bear… just as your soul cannot…

The fragments of thoughts cascade through his head. His steps hesitate, more than necessary on the soft and shifting sand above the waterline. The white water foams in to within cubits of his feet. Overhead, the hazy, high clouds turn the sun shrouded-gold, and the damp breeze from the sea seems suddenly chill. He stops before the bleached black boulder.

“Megaera?”

“Yes, best-betrothed?”

“Why… why do you… avoid… ?”

… to save my soul… myself…

“The correct word is flee,” she says.

What answers does he have? All he knows is that he has always loved the lady.

… Love? You don’t know love, just lust…

“Always lusted after the lady,” she corrects him, still sitting on the far end of the gray stone.

“Not just lust… not just that.” The calmness within his soul reassures him.

Why… love? How can you call that… love? “You’re lying to yourself. What you feel isn’t love,” she insists. Yet she is shaken by his coolness.

“Perhaps you don’t know love, either,” he suggests.

… don’t know… what it’s like… you have no idea…

“I know what I know.” Creslin’s heart pounds, even while his words are spoken quietly.

You know nothing… “Perhaps you should see what it feels like.” Megaera’s eyes fix on him.

“What what feels like?”

… your… love. “What you call love.” Megaera smiles.

Can she never love him? He watches as she lifts one hand theatrically. Fire flares at her fingertips.

Flames leap along his forearms-or are they Megaera’s forearms?-and sweat beads on his forehead. His/her stomach turns at the order/chaos conflict, as if he had told an untruth.

“Come now, best-betrothed. That’s nothing like cold iron.” Megaera’s voice is hard, and both of her arms lift.

Yet the ugly internal twisting tells him that she is lying.

… nothing at all like fighting cold iron…

RRHHHsssssm!

Fire slashes into the blue-green of the sky.

Creslin stands immobile on the rocky beach, looking at the redhead, his muscles convulsed and knotted like the bark of a gnarled oak.

“You didn’t spend a lifetime bound against such pain, O husband dear…” Damn you, sister dear… and you, unwitting tool. If…

Sensing the pain beneath the pain, Creslin forces his lungs to breathe and takes a step toward the end of the rock where Megaera sits. Once more that fire-white, almost lost within the blackness that enfolds Megaera, jets toward the clear eastern sky.

Again Creslin’s muscles knot with the internal flame that runs through his blood like acid. His guts turn, and he burns from sole to crown. But he takes another step forward. Megaera must feel the pain even more than he does, and how she has borne such agony for so long… how?

Not easily, best-betrothed…

The white flame, jetting into the sky, still burns both of them, and he sways, but breathes, and takes another step-another step toward the fires of the demons of light.

“Do you still love me, O best-betrothed?” How can you call… this love?

“Yes.” The words rasp from his hoarse throat as he reaches the midpoint of the seaward side of the boulder.

Megaera sits on the landward and northern end, another five cubits from him, another five long steps.

“Then know the measure of… my love… for you.” Love is… pain… sorrow…

He takes another two steps before he feels the gathering of whiteness that precedes the flames. If he must walk the fires of damnation-

RHHHHHSSSssm!

… never… not ever… love like that. “Such a lovely… thought…” Megaera’s voice is ragged.

Creslin can feel her unsteadiness, can sense the feeling of loss. He forces himself to take another step.

RRRhhhsstt!

Fires course through his arteries, through his arms and legs, and his eyes see only flares of energy. His arm breaks his fall against the boulder, and the sheer physical pain is almost a relief. A hissing escapes his lips. But he steps to within an arm’s length of where she sits.

Her legs are pressed against the pale gray stone, the once-black stone now bleached by sun and sea until it no longer matches the black of the cliff from which time and the sea have riven it.

“Look… at your… arms.”

Creslin does not look, knowing that they must be as red as though he had thrust them into a hearth. Instead, he lurches forward and grasps her elbows, fumbling but dragging her arms down until his fingers twine around her wrists.

RHHHssn!

… save me…

Someone moans, but Creslin cannot tell which of them it is. He wraps his arms around Megaera. She slides off the boulder, and he staggers backward in the sand that captures his boots. His heels dig in with the force of his and her weight.

“Sssss…”

A different kind of pain lances through his shoulder where her teeth bite into the muscle. He twists his body to escape.

“You… bound me… like no one… ever bound…” Her knee jabs into his thigh, seeking his groin and barely missing as he moves.

… not be a slave… not even to you…

“I bound… myself… same way.” His gasping words match hers.

“Different. You chose… I didn’t.” That was different. You chose to bind yourself to me. / didn’t choose to be bound to you.

Ice runs through his veins as the words chill him, words both spoken and echoing through his brain, and he drops away from her. He steps back, staggering, then stands beside the sea-smoothed gray boulder.

“You chose to bind yourself to me. I didn’t choose to be bound to you.” The words spin through his thoughts. You chose… I didn’t. You chose… I didn’t…

The waves ebb and flow. White birds wheel on wing tip as they cut the air above Creslin, and the sea pours across the sands, slipping around his boots.

He cannot see for the burning in his eyes, for the tears that streak his face. He cannot speak, for there are no words left to say. For Megaera is right. Megaera is right.

… right, right, right…

Binding himself to her was yet another act of violence, another kind of rape, an invasion of her innermost feelings.

His feet drag as he stumbles to the other end of the rock. He cannot see, but he does not need to. He has nowhere to go. Seabirds dive into the foam down the beach from where he stands frozen, and the sea whispers onto the sands.

Megaera is right, and he has no words, and no answers.

Go… don’t know what I want. Don’t want you to stay… don’t want you to go… damn you… damn you!

Creslin cannot speak, nor can he leave. Nor can he see beyond the blurriness that clouds his eyes.

Even as she has fought him, she has never struck at him other than to escape, as might a caged animal or a prisoner lash out. The flames were thrown to punish herself, and the physical struggle was but to escape, not to attack.

He swallows, looking out at the sullen swells, knowing that he will never again see the ice spire that is Freyja, save in his mind, nor touch the woman he has loved too well and never touched, yet assaulted all too familiarly.

White water foams in, flowing toward his boots, not quite reaching him, just as he has never quite reached understanding-or Megaera. Above, the gold-shrouded sun seems to retreat into the hazy, high clouds. The cool flow of air off the water does nothing to calm the burning of his arms and soul.

He does not look at Megaera, who stares as though frozen at the sea.

In time, Creslin begins to sing, for what else is there? He can say nothing, nor can he hold her, nor can he take back the pain that he has inflicted on her. Yet he must do something, and the song is old.

…Down by the seashore, where the waters foam white, hang your head over; hear the wind’s flight.

The east wind loves sunshine, and the west wind loves night.

The north blows alone, dear, and I fear the light.

You’ve taken my heart, dear, beyond the winds’ night.

The fires you have kindled last longer than light… last longer than light, dear, when the waters foam white; hang your head over; hear the wind’s flight.

The fires you have kindled will last out my night.

Soon I will die, dear, on the mountains’ cold height.

The steel wind blows truth, dear, beyond my blade’s might… beyond my blade’s might, dear, where the waters foam white; hang your head over; hear the wind’s flight.

I told you the truth, dear, right from the start.

I wanted your love, dear, with all of my heart.

Sometimes you hurt me, and sometimes we fought, but now that you’ve left me, my life’s been for naught.

My life’s been for naught, dear, when the waters foam white; so hand your head over, and hear the wind’s flight.

So hang your head over, and hear the wind’s flight.

After the song, Creslin is silent. His hands remain knotted around the bleached gray stone.

How long he stands there, he does not know, and though the clouds thicken above, he has not called the winds. Nor has Megaera, although he knows now that she could, for she knows all that he knows, and more.

“No… there is one thing I don’t know.” Her voice is soft, but he does not move.

Finally he swallows. He does not ask the question, hoping only that she will answer.

“Why you never struck back at me.”

“Because…” Because you love me…

He nods. Impossibly, unwisely, he loves Megaera. And he can never touch her, never even hold her.

“You may hold me, best-beloved.”

… best-beloved…

Creslin is not aware that she has moved until she stands beside him.

Why?

Because you love me. And because I could love no other. Sister dear, damn and praise her soul, was right.

“You deserve to love someone, not just to be loved.” The words are hard, for he knows that he may be pushing her away, but he must be fair, no matter what it may cost. Especially now, for he has not been fair, though he thought he had been.

“Hold me. Please.”… always fight you… but you know that already. Hold me…

He turns toward her, and there is a lump in his throat. He cannot see past the rekindled burning in his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

This time she is the one to say nothing, but her arms go around his neck, and her head is on his shoulder, and her silent sobs rack them both.

So hard to love… “Just keep… holding me.” The words come like sobs themselves… keep holding me…

“Always…”

Always…

The sea hisses, and the waves ebb and flow.

In time, a man and a woman walk northeast along the white beach toward the towers of the sunset. Neither speaks as they are enfolded in the blackness that only they and few others can see. A single ray of sunlight strikes the sand before them, then retreats from their oncoming steps.