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between the table and the nearer portal window.
As she glanced toward him, his eyes caught hers, and she was afraid to look
away.
"Do you really want your heart's desire, lady?"
Cigne looked down at the table, afraid to answer, afraid not to.
"Be careful with wishes, lady. Certain you will never return?"
"I am sure. I will never go back."
"Suppose not. Not if you were willing to try the spout winds." He turned
halfway toward the oval transparency before his desk. "And the other makes
sense. Especially if you could get to Denv. Not that it would be a problem."
"Denv? Not a problem? It is kays and kays away."
"No problem."
He sat down in the strange leaning chair by his desk and pulled off the light
black boots.
"Listen for a time, lady. Just listen."
The lilt in his voice seemed more pronounced, and she looked toward him, but
he was gazing into the window.
"Listen?" she asked.
"Just listen." He turned back toward her, but she would not meet his eyes and
stared at the dark spruces in the afternoon light.
207
"A long time ago, in a place like this, the people were dying, for each year
they had less food, and each year there were fewer of them. The winter lasted
into the summer and the summer was cold and short and filled with storms. And
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the summer storms were like the ten month storms, while the winter storms
hurled boulders the size of houses and ripped gashes the size of canyons into
the high plains.
"In this old time, a young man escaped from the cold and storms in a silver
ship sent by the Great
Old Empire That Was. And he went to the stars to learn what he could learn. He
wished a great wish, and it was granted. And he came back to his place, and it
was called Old Earth. And he broke the winter storms of the high plains. And
he taught the people how to grow the grains and make the land bear fruit they
could eat. But the storms elsewhere still raged, and the people in those
places away from the high plains sickened and died, and the ten month storms
raged through all the year but the short summer. And still the trees would not
grow.
"The young man wished another great wish, and it was granted. But the price
for the second wish was that he must leave his people forever. He climbed back
to the stars, and in time he sent them the Rain of Life.
"The trees grew once more, and the people no longer sickened, and the summers
returned. And the people were glad. In their gladness, they rejoiced, and as
they rejoiced they forgot the young man and the two great wishes.
"As the great years of the centuries passed, the young man climbed back from
the stars and returned to the place he had left. But it was not the same
place. He was still young in body, but old in spirit.
And his people were gone, and those who now tilled the soil and cut the trees
turned away when they saw him. For they saw the stars in his eyes and were
afraid.
"The women he had once loved had died and were dust, and those who saw him
feared him and would have nothing to do with him But his wishes were granted."
Cigne shivered at the gentle voice telling the fable that she knew was not a
fable. She said nothing, but looked back down at the inlaid pattern on the
table, endlessly repeating itself.
"There is a danger in wishing great wishes."
She lifted her head, though she did not look at him, and spoke. "There is
danger in not wishing."
This time he nodded. "True. All wishes have their prices, and the price we
agree to pay is the lesser of the prices we pay. Are you certain you wish to
pay such a price? For you will pay more dearly than the spoken word can tell."
Holding back a shiver, she nodded.
"Then listen again."
He stood and turned toward the window. A single note issued from his lips,
lingering in the late afternoon gloom like a summer sunbeam trapped out of
season.
A second note joined the first, both singing simultaneously, before being
replaced by a second pair, then a third.
Though she had never heard of the songs of an old man who looked young, she
listened. Though she feared the demon who might kill with gentleness, though
she had never heard of the double melody, and its double price, she listened.
And she heard, taking in each note and storing it in her heart, though she
knew each would someday wound as deeply as a knife.
A tear welled up in one eye, then the other, as she began to cry. And still
she listened, and heard the sadness, and the loneliness, and the loves left
long since behind, but not forgotten.
His arms reached around her shoulders, warm around her, and the song [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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