A Strange and Ancient Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

walk?”
    Alliar ached in every muscle, and longed for nothing so much as to let this ridiculous trap of a body rest. But if rest meant being buried alive—“Walk?” the being retorted with a flash of humor. “I can run!”

    ###

    Alliar, out on the palace balcony in the present, smiled. Run they had, narrowly escaping as the last of the castle settled with spectacular noise into so much broken stone behind them. Only then, once he was sure they were safe and it was really over, had the young prince, white-faced with shock and the realization of what he had done, stopped to be thoroughly sick.
    “Ah, Hauberin.” It was a whisper of pure affection.
    Of course Alliar had returned to the royal palace with Hauberin—where else was there to go?—and heard the young prince punished and praised for his rash, heroic actions. The being had defended Hauberin hotly, and earned the amused approval of the boy’s tall, golden father, Prince Laherin.
    But then had come bitter, bitter disappointment. The court sages all studied Alliar and came to the same regretful conclusion: insane Ysilar had worked a binding spell on the spirit so foreign it could not be broken. For a dark while after that, Alliar had wanted only death, not caring that suicide for a bound spirit would probably mean extinction.
    But Hauberin had pierced the darkness. “Look you, I know I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve lost. And the Powers know you’ve been given no reason so far to live. But . . . oh, Alliar, there are such wonderful things to flesh-and-blood life, and you don’t know any of them.”
    “I don’t care to—”
    “Don’t interrupt! I saved your life, I’m responsible for it, and—d-dammit, I’m not going to let you go till you’ve learned to enjoy it!”
    And the boy had won. There had been small time for despair amid the shining new wonders of taste and touch and smell. Alliar smiled, remembering lying in sweet-scented grass, listening to birdsong, feeling the living earth beneath. And swimming—ha, what a lovely, alien pleasure that had been, moving easily through water cool and clear as air. There had been the bliss of music, too, and song, and oh, the joy of realizing all magic didn’t have to have a tang of pain to it. Most wondrous of all, there had been laughter.
    Hauberin, Hauberin, I owe you a debt I can never repay.
    No. “Debt” was a cold, hard word. It wasn’t obligation keeping Alliar here, but love. Not, of course, anything like that pleasure gendered folk seemed to take in each other’s flesh; there were some things even a tangible spirit could never understand, physically or emotionally. But this love of friend and friend Alliar did know, and it was a wonderful thing, refreshing as . . . swooping down summer skies, comforting as . . . as . . . Ae, useless. There were no wind spirit equivalents for it. Except—joy.
    The being stared out into the directionless brightening that meant the coming of dawn in sunless Faerie, and smiled.

    ###

    Charailis stretched languorously, a sleek figure in soft, silky blue, unbound hair rippling down her back in a fall of pale silver. The hour was very late, and she was truly weary after the festivities at the royal palace and the journey in her carriage drawn by matched winged steeds back to her own estate. But Charailis stood at the window of her elegant white bedchamber, too lost in thought for sleep.
    What an odd night this had been. Particularly in regard to Hauberin. Charailis, bored with courtly matters, had involved herself for some time with personal magics, personal affairs. But she really had been away from court too long if that unprepossessing boy had had time enough to grow into manhood.
    Charailis laughed softly. Who would ever have expected the little mixed-blood creature to become anything of worth, let alone a ruler who had actually held the throne safe for six years? She had underestimated the young one, no doubt of that. So blatant an attempt at