[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

wanted was to bed me. Every male I meet wants to bed me, including that
obscene otter you hang around with, and he isn't even of the same species."
"Somebody mention me name?" Mudge looked up from his arrow-gathering.
"Never mind, Mudge." Talea turned angrily back to Jon-Tom. "You never said one
word about my being your only true love."
"Couldn't you tell how I felt about you?"
She let out a sigh of exasperation. "You men! You expect every woman to be a
mind reader. How am I
expected to know how you really feel if you don't tell me?"
"Truthsayer," said Dormas sagely.
"I just thought-" he tried to say lamely, but she was in no mood for excuses.
" 'You just thought.' You men just think, and we poor women are supposed to
divine what you're thinking about, and if we don't, then we're callous and
uncaring and insensitive!"
"Now just a minute!" he roared. "If you think all you have to do after
disappearing on me is . . ." And they went on in that vein, arguing loudly and
incessantly, about just who had let whom down.
Page 117
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Colin was standing nearby, cleaning his saber. Mudge ambled over, nodded
toward the pair of combative humans. "Charmin', wot? 'Ave you ever seen a
prettier couple?" The koala nodded, turned his sword over, and commenced to
polish the other side. It was thick with red-orange dust. "Listen to them
squall. 'Tis true love for sure."
"Who's the woman?"
"Old acquaintance o' mine. Carries a sharp knife an' a sharp tongue an' is
quick to use both. Introduced
'im to 'er when the two of us had occasion to 'elp 'er out o' a tight spot.
They didn't 'it it off right away.
She's a bit o' an independent, Talea is. Been awhile since they've seen each
other. I imagine they've a bucket o' mutual insults to catch up on."
Mudge's sarcasm was grounded more in the otter's personality than in truth,
for the argument soon gave way to recriminations and apologies. Before long,
Jon-Tom and Talea were talking amiably and quietly.
That was rapidly replaced by whispering, he doing a lot of smiling and she
doing a lot of giggling.
"Bloody disgustin'," Mudge said, observing the congenial couple.
"I take it you're not looking for a permanent mate," Colin commented.
"Wot, me? Listen, mate, the only thing that would ever slow this otter down
would be two broken legs, an' even then I'd do me damnedest to crawl out of
any potential 'ouse'old."
"I feel differently. Not married yet, but I hope to be someday. I just haven't
found a lady with whom I'd feel comfortable for the rest of my life." He
hesitated a moment. "I find talking about personal relationships with females
difficult. I'm much more comfortable when the conversation has to do with
casting the runes or the arts of war."
"Is that so? Well, then, if you'd like, I'd be 'appy to give you the benefit
o' me extensive experience in that particular area in which you confess to a
certain deficiency. If you can talk war, you can talk love, guv'nor."
"I know some folks consider the two not dissimilar." He eyed the otter warily.
"It's just that I'm interested in the diplomatic angles, and I think you're
more involved with subversion."
"Nonesense, mate!" Mudge put a comradely arm around the koala's broad
shoulders. "Now the first thing you got to know is 'ow to . . ."
"I've been through several different kinds of hell this past year," Jon-Tom
was telling Talea. "No matter where I was, in what danger, I was always
thinking of you."
"I never stopped thinking of you, either, Jon-Tom. In fact, there was a time
when I thought I'd made up my mind about us. I tried to seek you out, only to
find out that you'd gone off on some fool errand clear across the Glittergeist
Sea."
"Clothahump was deathly ill," he explained to her. "I went because he needed a
certain medicine that was only available in a certain town. As it turned out,
the whole expedition was unnecessary, but none of us knew that at the time. We
didn't find that out until it was too late."
"There are so many things in life we don't find out until it is too late," she
murmured, waxing uncharacteristically philosophic. "I'm beginning to learn
that myself."
It required a tremendous effort of will for him not to press his affections on
her, sitting there winsome and vulnerable as she was. But during their
on-again, off-again relationship he'd learned one thing well about
Talea: It was best not to push her, to insist on anything, because her natural
reaction was not to acceed but to push back. Having found her again under the
most unexpected circumstances, he was going to be as careful as possible not
to drive her away again.
"It's all right. I understand. All of us need time to learn about ourselves.
We have plenty of time."
Page 118
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
She looked up at him sharply. "That's not what you said before. You wanted a
permanent commitment right then and there."
"I'm not the same person I was before. I'm a full-fledged spellsinger"-that
was only a small fib, he told himself- "I've been around, and I know a lot
more about myself as well as about the world around us.
Enough to know to let love or just friendship take its course." He reached out
to caress her cheek with one hand. "Right now it's enough just to see you
again, just to be near you. I just wish the immediate situation wasn't quite
so desperate."
She nodded solemnly. "It's all so bizarre and crazy, but I keep telling myself
it must be so because you and Clothahump both wouldn't lie to me."
"We wouldn't lie to you separately."
"So I have to accept it. The proof of it is that I'm here."
"I feel the same way."
She hesitated. "If this is a matter of magic, Clothahump could be the one to
handle it. You and I could leave."
"I can't." He swallowed. The pressure of her hand in his sent fire racing up
his arm. "I owe Clothahump too much. I have to help him see this business
through to the finish, even if it means the end of me. Of us."
"That's what I wanted to hear," she said with relief.
"It is?"
"I was afraid that part of you, that bravery in the face of overwhelming odds,
that committment to justice when confronted by indestructible evil, might have
changed also. I wanted to make sure it hadn't. I
couldn't love you if you'd gone sensible on me."
"Thanks-I think."
"I know from what you've told me that we have to free this perambulator thing
from its captor up there."
She indicated the fortress just above the place where they had paused prior to
making the final assault. "I
wouldn't leave now even if you agreed to. I've been used. I feel used. I want
to make that unseen bastard pay. He almost had me killed, which isn't so bad.
But he tried to make you do it. That's dirty. I don't like dirt, Jon-Tom. I
like clean. There's something up there that needs cleaning up." She put both
hands on his shoulders. Her lips were every close. He leaned forward. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]