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promised? He felt the slow smile spread over his face. Yes, that was the
solution! He could keep his word. Hastily he felt his way back to the altar,
and scrabbled with sensitive fingertips until he found his tinder and flint.
Striking a hasty light, he began to gather up bundles of herbs, piling them on
Meshpri's altar.
The buildings on the Avenue of Temples were reputed to be haunted. Anyone
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passing by the ancient shrine to Meshpri late that night would have heard the
banshee cackling of restless spirits and hurried home to lock their doors.
Night had just drawn its cloak over Sanctuary when the hooded visitor returned
to the apothecary shop.
Pel had been waiting impatiently all day. Unable to think about anything but
the impending meeting, he couldn't trust himself to mix medicines, lest he
make an error that might prove fatal. Instead, he set himself the backbreaking
task of cleaning up after his conscripted workforce. The bristles of his broom
were at least a handspan shorter than they'd started out that morning, so
vigorous was he in sweeping. He had just bent to brush up a panful of stone
dust, when the low voice came almost at his elbow.
"Healer?"
Pel jerked bolt upright. The pan flew out of his hands, scattering the dust
all over. "You're here!" he exclaimed.
"I am. Is it ready?"
"Yes, it is," Pel said, knowing he was babbling. "This way. It's ready. Seven
uses' worth for one soldat. If you need more, I can make it. Any time."
Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he took the small bottle out from under
the altar and placed it before the visitor. No gloved hand reached out to take
it.
"Taste it," the visitor commanded.
"What?" Pel asked. He tried to peer under the hood to see his visitor's eyes,
but it was too deep.
"I do not know you. There are poisoners in this city. Taste it."
"But I'll& " Pel began. Never mind. He picked up the bottle and uncorked it.
With a glance at the door, Pel took a mouthful of the potion. He swallowed.
There was no way to disguise the effects of the jewelweed potion. They were
immediate and long lasting.
His member sprang against the inside of his trousers. Pel felt his cheeks
burn. He hadn't had this sudden an erection since he'd been a boy just
reaching puberty. It almost hurt. The hood appeared to study the reaction with
intellectual interest. Pel thought he would die of shame.
"Satisfactory," the visitor said. He flicked his hand, and a soldat bounced on
the stone table. With a sweep of the enveloping black sleeve, the small bottle
disappeared. "I will be back for more when I
require it."
"Welcome, I'm sure," Pel gritted, wishing he'd go.
The visitor laid a gloved hand on his arm for thanks. "You serve one greater
than yourself." The cloak swirled out of the door, and Pel relaxed. Or tried
to. It was going to be a couple of hours until things&
calmed down.
He hadn't foreseen having to test the potion for the visitor, but it was
unimportant. Pel never intended to sire a child again. The potion would do
exactly what he had promised the visitor it would: allow him to mate with his
new priestesses. Pel had not promised that it would allow him to sire children
on them.
He'd made the potion exactly as he always did, but added a special ingredient,
a rare herb only found near graves and barrows. The priest might be full of
new vigor and potency, but empty of seed. If he finished the entire vial,
which Pel had no doubt whatever he would, he'd never be able to sire another
as long as he lived.
The visitor was right: Pel did serve one greater than himself. Meshpri, and
her son, would surely forgive the liberty, but it was all in the cause of
saving lives. Babies who were never conceived would never die.
The Red Lucky
Lynn Abbey
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Bezulshash, better known as Bezul the changer, awoke to the honking of twenty
outraged geese and a dream that something had struck the front door of his
family's establishment at the nether end of Wriggle
Way, deep in the Shambles quarter of Sanctuary.
"Bez?" his wife, Chersey, whispered. "Bez, are you awake?"
"I am," he assured her, despite the absurdity of the question: Nothing on
Wriggle Way could sleep once the geese got going.
They both shucked their blankets. Barefoot, Chersey hurried to their children,
four-year-old Ayse, and her little brother, Lesimar, both beginning to howl
from the cradle they shared. Bezul spared the extra moment to find his boots
and the antique, iron-headed mace he kept handy beside the master bed.
He was tiptoeing down the pitch-dark stairway when a patch of light appeared
on the landing behind him.
"Bezul?" a woman asked, her voice gone deep with age. "Is that you?"
"It is, Mother." Bezul spoke loudly; the geese were still in high dudgeon. "I
heard a strike against the door. I'm sure it's nothing, but I've got the club.
Shut the door and go back to bed where it's warm."
By the lingering light, Gedozia did neither. The stairway shuddered beneath
her unsteady footfalls.
"Mother "
"It's them," she declared. "It's them come to steal what's left. Mind the
shadows, your father says.
They're waiting in the shadows. They came back. Came back with the bloody
moon!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]