A Strange and Ancient Name by Josepha Sherman Read Free Book Online Page B

a scrawny little thing it was! All unlikely lengths of arms and legs—too thin, surely?—with those enormous dark eyes peering out from beneath that wild mass of black hair.
    Did I ever look like that? I hope not!
    But the boy seemed to see a resemblance, in coloring if in nothing else. He left the bed on which he’d been huddling and approached the prince with a wild animal’s wariness that struck an unexpected note of purely human sympathy in Hauberin and left him standing stock still and ill at ease.
    And what was he supposed to say to the child. “It doesn’t matter, does it, boy? You can’t possibly understand a word I say.”
    The human stopped, blinking, uncertain. After a moment he spoke, a rusty, hesitant string of sounds. Hauberin listened dutifully, then sighed. “No, boy. I don’t understand you.” He tried an experimental shift of languages. “And I don’t suppose you know my mother’s tongue, either? No. I thought not.”
    So. Surely this satisfied Alliar and the maternally beaming Aydris? The prince turned to them—but in a little flurry of those gawky limbs, the boy caught him, clinging to him desperately. The startled Hauberin froze, confused and embarrassed, thinking with a moment’s wild gratitude, At least they managed to bathe him, not quite certain how to free himself.
    “Hey now, boy, let go. I’m not your kinsman after all.”
    No reaction.
    “Let go, child.”
    Ridiculous. If some presumptuous adult had dared seize him, Hauberin would have loosed his magic. But of course he couldn’t use magic now, not against a child!
    “Come now, enough.”
    If Aydris was so maternal-minded about the boy, let him go cling to her! Or Alliar, who was fairly choking with laughter. Hauberin glanced down at his small, determined captor, wondering if he could peel the boy off bit by bit. Like a limpet.
    But all at once Hauberin glimpsed the boy’s eyes, and suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore, because where they should have been dark, they glittered a cold, familiar sea-green—
    Serein!
    No wonder he’d surrendered his slave so meekly. No wonder he had made no outward attack during all this past moon-cycle. He’d needed none. This child was his weapon!
    The child who was armed with iron. Hauberin twisted desperately as he saw metal flash, but he couldn’t pull free from the tangle of limbs in the instant of time before—
    With a wild, unfocused blaze of will, Hauberin hurled the boy from him, not quite in time. Something white-hot seared his side and he cried out in anguish, hearing Aydris’ terrified scream like an acho. Then a frantic Alliar was at his side.
    “Let me see! Oh Winds, did the blade cut you?”
    If it had, he was already dead. “Let me be.” The boy still had the knife and was about to strike again—“Alliar, let me be!”
    This time the surge of will was controlled, a lance of light flashing from Hauberin’s outflung hand. The boy screamed, falling back against a wall, knife dropping from numbed fingers, and the prince lunged at him, catching the thin shoulders in a fierce grip.
    “Link with me, Li.”
    “My prince—”
    “Link with me!”
    He felt Alliar’s consciousness, cool and clear as wind, obediently touch his, then reached out to catch the boy’s mind with his own, brushing aside the unskilled, frightened attempts at defense, searching—There! As elusive as shadow, there was Serein’s presence, the merest trace, barely enough to say, I am,slipping, sliding away from him . . .
    In the next instant, it was gone. Only the boy was left, trembling so violently only Hauberin’s grip on his shoulders held him upright. Sick with guilt, the prince gently touched his mind again in an attempt to soothe him, only to recoil in disbelief. There was nothing of the child-essence to be read, nothing save shadow.
    That’s impossible, Hauberin told himself hurriedly, it’s only that he’s exhausted. He’ll recover, and prayed he was correct.
    But he had to do something. If