World's End

Page 64

again, sheltering her, answering her need; knowing all the while that it is another man's arms she longs to feel around her.

And as he realizes that even his love is hopeless, he realizes how much he loves her, has always loved her, will love her until he dies. The code that controls his life, that has told him his life is no longer worth living, would have forbidden this love he feels for a barbarian girl as pale as moonlight. ... But her reality makes his Truth as transparent as a lie; she makes his scars invisible.

His

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arms tighten around her; bittersweet longing and desire are all he knows, and all he needs to know.

With a kind of amazement he feels her heartbeat quicken, answering his own. . . .

And then it ends. It always ends. Because it was never real, goddamn it! It was always a dream--even while it was happening. It could never have lasted. Her life was becoming a part of history, and I was nothing but a footnote. I knew it then, in my mind if not my heart.

That's why I left her. . . .

Then, why did leaving Tiamat leave me so empty--?

And when she disappears, why does it leave me so afraid?

The fear spills over into the daytime, until I have to blink my eyes to separate salt and sand from snow.

. . . Spadrin's eyes are not the color of the sky. Ang's eyes are as black as jet, and as impenetrable.

Are we his partners, or his pawns? What really goes on in his mind?

How could he have spent so long out here, and not have been affected somehow by this place . .

. ? He eats and sleeps and stares off into the distance with his lenses as

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if he's alone.

Song's eyes stare into my soul, night after night.

... A sibyl found me once, in the wilderness, and saved me. And now a sibyl calls to me, Come to Fire Lake . . . find me . . . save me. Save me--

So

WORLD S END

I ... What the hell am I saying? I'm tired. . . . I'm just tired, that's all.

Where are my brothers, goddamn them .. . ? What did