Tides of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

in those days,” he said.
    She frowned. “Tell me what you’re not telling me.”
    â€œNot now, I think,” he said. He smiled, but she knew how little hope she had of moving him. “This I can tell you. The boy knows something. He may not even be aware that he knows it.”
    â€œWould he divulge it to you?”
    â€œI doubt it,” he said.
    She hissed at him. He only went on smiling. “You are always welcome in my house,” he said.

    He was gone before she could speak again. She considered flinging herself on the ground and indulging in a fit of pure useless fury. But she was too old for that, and maybe too much a coward.
    Instead she walked through the Gate that was in her, and stood on a windy mountaintop, looking down into a starlit bowl of valley.
    Estarion knew she had come. She felt the brush of his regard. What the other thought, she did not know him well enough to tell. If his reputation was to be trusted, he would not even be aware of her; but she placed little trust in rumor. Not about this one.
    She waited out the night on the mountain, wrapped in a cloak of darkness and stars. The Gates lay quiet within her, save that, on the edge of awareness, she knew a glimmer of unease. Nothing troubled her, neither man nor beast nor bird of the air.
    At sunrise she walked down to the shepherd’s cot that was all the palace Estarion wanted in this age of the world. He had gone out before dawn, striding long-legged across the valley; he carried a staff and a bag, and had a bow slung behind him, as if he were going hunting. He had not taken the boy with him. The boy, she was well aware, had roused to see him going, then rolled onto his face and plunged back into sleep.
    A creature of cities, that one, to sleep while the sun was in the sky. He had made a nest for himself in a corner of the hut, a heap of furs and blankets, but he had kicked them off as he slept. She had a fine view of his shoulders and back and buttocks, and his ruffled bright hair that was growing out of its dreadful close cut.
    She sat on her heels and waited as she had on the mountain, with the patience of a mage. While she waited, she explored the Gates, searching out the strangeness. It kept eluding her, until she began to wonder if she had sensed it at all.
    After quite some time, the sleeper began to twitch. His shoulders flexed; he wriggled, as if to burrow into his bed. He groped blindly for coverlets.
    She was sitting on them. He opened a clouded eye and stared blankly at her. She stared coolly back. The eye went wide. He scrambled up, still
half in a dream, and seemed torn between the prince’s urge to bow and the fugitive’s urge to escape.
    She stood between him and the only door. He was still too aggravated with her to offer royal courtesy. He settled for standing in the tumble of his bed and glaring at her.
    â€œI would think,” she said, “that with your master gone out hunting, you would be expected to look after the flock.”
    He started as if struck. Shock of remembrance chased guilt across his face and hid behind outraged temper. “Are you my master, too?”
    â€œI might be,” she said, “if you prove to have a Gate-mage’s gift.”
    â€œYou don’t want me,” he said. He sounded just barely bitter.
    â€œNo? You imagine you’re the only scapegrace who ever vexed his betters’ peace?”
    â€œI don’t imagine I’m worth much at all.”
    She looked him up and down. It was a pleasant occupation, and one she was not inclined to finish overly soon; particularly when the slow flush crawled from his breastbone to his brow. “What is this play of worthlessness? Is it a fashion? A game? A way of tricking the dark gods into ignoring you?”
    He shrugged, sullen. “Maybe it’s the truth.”
    â€œYou know it’s not.” She pulled a shirt from beneath her and tossed it at him. “Get dressed. I’ll