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a big galaxy out there, but I bet you could find me, or Arshel, just by
wandering around. You think you learned all that at Mautri? No, you've spent
lifetimes mastering those skills!"
Tightly, Khelin added, "And abusing them."
"Maybe," conceded Zref, "but it's taught you the ethic governing influence
over others, and over chance. It's such a bitter lesson, you're terrified to
remember you first learned it in the Maze I built! You walked the Maze again
and again, and seated those powers deep within you. As long as your goal is to
use Mautri to suppress those powers, Mautri will reject you. What you
suppress, Ley must control. If you would be whole again, you must remember the
Maze."
On impulse, Zref extracted the Glenwarnan case from his pocket. Moving with
utmost care, he proffered it. "Here. Look. This will help you remember."
Khelin shrank away.
Zref encouraged, "I'm not going to touch you. I promised. I know you'd only
strike me and lose your venom."
It was criminal, what Ley's absence was forcing Khelin to endure, and Zref
knew he was making it worse. Yet if this worked, it would mark a crucial
turning point for Khelin.
With infinite caution, Khelin reached to take the casing. Zref noted the ashen
blisters of dead hide on Khelin's hands. At least the skin was parting
properly there, but what about the areas of his body he, himself couldn't
reach. But he put that thought aside as unworthy. Ley wouldn't neglect that
duty, even if Khelin begged him to.
Before Zref could doubt his decision to show Khelin the innermost secrets of
Glenwarnan, the kren held the holoscope up and looked within. With his hide
stiffening, it was hard to read his face, but Zref thought he saw fascination,
awe, and then dawning comprehension there. What if I've truly read his past
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lives, and he was at Glenwarnan, too?
Fifteen minutes later, Khelin lowered the instrument. He breathed, "I was
praying for this before you came in."
The emotion sweeping through the kren poured new venom into his sack, and in
one convulsive movement, he clutched at the venom bottle, hooking his extended
fangs over its padded edge as he held it himself. But he didn't brace the
bottle against his lower jaw, as a bhirhir would.
With one lax, slow outbreath, Khelin allowed the stored venom to pour in twin
yellow streams into the venom bottle.
In the middle of this, the upper door opened and Ley entered. He assessed the
room with one flickering glance, and then strode across the landing and down
the stairs, charging at Zref who was rising carefully to his feet.
"Out!" demanded Ley. "You you you out!"
CHAPTER NINE
Stonehenge
"A kren," said Zref to Arshel, "would've struck me!"
"When he left here," she answered, "Ley was as distraught as any kren would
have been that Khelin hadn't called for him." They were sitting in Jocelyn's
room at the infirmary, Shui with them while Iraem ran errands.
After Ley had left, Jocelyn's fever had broken leaving her in a deep sleep.
Zref had related Khelin's triumph over the purple degree's technique of
self-expression, though not mentioning his holocase, which he'd left with
Khelin. "I'm not sure Ley will ever thank me," said Zref. "But at least it
wasn't what he thought when he walked in."
"Khelin will talk some sense into him,'.' said Shui. "I remember all the years
Khelin's suffered trying the purple expression, and now you've given it to
him. If he's really a purple now maybe " His eyes flicked to Jocelyn.
Arshel said, "We have to tell him. But, Zref, remember I'm only a green and
Shui has barely taken the light blue. This is really for Khelin or even Jylyd
to judge "
Zref waited, caught once more in the trap of the Interface who hasn't been
asked a question.
"I think we've lost Jocelyn," said Shui. "Khelin warned her she might be open
to unfriendly influences, and "
Zref stared at Jocelyn, face pale against russet hair, and his private file
conjured the illusion-shrouded image of the Enemy. At the time, the vision had
no power over him. Now, his guts writhed, and it took all his courage to touch
Jocelyn's face, as he'd touched Khelin. But this time, he sensed nothing. He
related Khelin's battle, ending, "He's no mere purple; he's a white." Yet
there was nothing they could do until Khelin and Ley rejoined them.
" " "
Two days later, Zref walked into the sitting room from a tedious day's work
with students. Among their uninspired theories, he'd found some brilliant
ones. Originality excited curiosity from which an Interface derived his sole
pleasure in life, yet Zref also feared success, for the Enemy might grab the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]