A Bait of Dreams (46 page)
Authors: Jo; Clayton
The wind is growing stronger; it moans at them, throws grit into their faces as they emerge from the mountain. They run across the littered black plain like fire racing through dry grass, run as one, drawing strength from the dying embers of anger and need, drawing strength from air and stone and all around them, racing with only one thought, to get away, to get as far away from the mountain as they can, racing on and on, powered by a force that comes into them from all around them, running on and on.â¦
The sky cracks open, a strain of blue spreads over the dark, blotting out the stars. Shounach catches Gleia round the shoulders, falls with her into a hollow in the stone. SOUND fills the night, a WIND rushes over them, hot as the breath from Aschla's hells, the stone judders under them, throwing them away from each other.â¦
Gleia sat up, scrubbed at her face with a trembling hand, then stared at the blood seeping from her lacerated palm. “I'm always wrecking my hands.” Her ears were ringing, her voice comes to her from a great distance.
Shounach laughed. He got to his feet and stood looking back the way he'd come, satisfaction and weariness written deep into his face.
Gleia followed his gaze. The black mountain was spouting fire, specks of it flying out like spittle from a drooler's mouth. “Well,” she said, “You're thorough.” She looked around. “Where's Deel?”
Shounach grimaced. “Behind you. Still out.”
Gleia got to her feet, wincing as deep bruises, stone burns and shallow cuts complained. She walked like an old woman over to Deel and stood looking down at her. The Dancer was curled like a child asleep; she seemed gentle and vulnerable, all the strains of the past days erased from face and body.
Shounach came to stand beside Gleia. “She's a survivor.”
Gleia nodded. “Better than me, I think.”
“No!” The denial had a violence in it that made her stare at him, startled. “In no way is she better than you.”
He swung her around, stood with his hands closed hard on her shoulders. “You know where your family is now. You can go back to them if you want. They'll take you in, be sure of that.”
“I am.” She put her hands on his arms and smiled at him.
“Are you going to them?”
“No.”
“Gleia ⦠where do you go, then, if not to them?”
“With you.”
“No doubts? No questions?”
“Always. They don't matter.”
He drew a finger along the brown lines of her brands, traced the outline of her lips, tapped at the end of her nose. “You're wiser than me.” He moved away from her, caught hold of Deel's arms, lifted her a little, set his shoulder under her middle and got heavily to his feet. “Huh! she gets heavier each time.” He reached out his free hand to Gleia. “Come on, Vixen. It'll be morning soon and Ruhshiyd is waiting.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Clayton (1939â1998) was the author of thirty-five published novels and numerous short stories in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She was best known for the Diadem Saga, in which an alien artifact becomes part of a person's mind. She also wrote the Skeen Trilogy, the Duel of Sorcery series, and many more. Jo Clayton's writing is marked by complex, beautifully realized societies set in exotic worlds and stories inhabited by compelling heroines. Her illness and death from multiple myeloma galvanized her local Oregon fan community and science fiction writers and readers nationwide to found the Clayton Memorial Medical Fund.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1985 by Jo Clayton
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3851-5
This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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