Brechalon by Wesley Allison Read Free Book Online Page B

the
knife in an arc around the room and back at her. In midair it
turned into badminton shuttlecock.
    “ Uuthanum,” she sent it back to him
again, now transformed into a squirming serpent.
    “ Uuthanum.” As it sailed at her
again, the snake became a rose.
    Zurfina snatched it from the air and winced as
the long pointed thorns bit her hand. “Son of a bitch!”
    “ You can’t get away,” said
Bassington.
    “ No?” Zurfina gestured and was
gone, leaving the wizard alone in the room.
    That was two thousand twenty one days
ago.
    * * * * *
    Two thousand nine hundred and seven days ago,
Zurfina reclined across the park bench and took a deep breath,
savoring the smell of the white rose that Smedley held to her nose.
She shifted slightly, nestling her head more comfortably in his
lap. A light breeze was whipping around her and as she looked up
into the sky. She could see clouds floating by at a surprisingly
quick pace.
    “ You haven’t given me an answer,”
said Smedley.
    “ An answer to what?”
    “ An answer to the most important
question in my life.”
    “ And what might that question
be?”
    “ Infuriating woman,” Smedley
snapped. “You know what question. You haven’t yet told me whether
you’ll marry me. In antediluvian times, I’d simply have hit you
over the head with a club and pulled you by the hair back to my
cave.”
    “ Yes, well.” Zurfina’s
charcoal-lined, grey eyes slowly rose to meet his. “Then I would
wait until you were asleep and slice your throat with my stone
knife.”
    A slight shiver ran through Smedley’s body that
made her smile, but he didn’t look away.
    “ So?”
    “ So what?” she purred.
    “ Will you marry me?”
    “ I believe I will have you.
Yes.”
    “ Thank you,” he beamed. “You’ve
made me the happiest man in Brech.”
    “ Not yet, but soon.” she replied,
reaching under her head and stroking the crotch of his trousers.
“After all, just because I must wait to have you, doesn’t mean that
you must wait to have me.”
    “ What a tart.”
    That was two thousand nine hundred and seven
days ago.
    * * * * *
    “ One thousand nine hundred sixty
eight days. One thousand nine hundred sixty eight days.” Zurfina
pressed her face against the cold stone of the cell. “Bloody
bastard.”
    * * * * *
    Terrence had no idea what day it was. At least
he knew it was Pentuary. Oh, yes. He knew that. It was starting to
get hot and nobody wanted to spend their days indoors. That was
where he had spent most of the last week though—holed up in to the
back part of the house “seeing.” During that time he had very
little food and almost no real sleep. He looked at the collection
of tiny bottles in the wooden case. He had already finished one and
all but finished another. He tucked the box under the bed and left
the room, carefully locking the door behind him. The empty hallway
and the stuffy air gave him a strange sense of déjà vu.
    * * * * *
    It had been Pentuary too when it happened,
sixteen years before. Iolanthe, Augie, Yuah, and Dorah were sitting
in a circle on the floor around Master Akalos, who was making them
recite the names of the books in the Modest Scriptures. That two of
them were the children of aristocrats and two were the children of
servents made no difference to Master Akalos. That three of them
were Kafirites and one of them was a Zaeri did, and the tutor
gained a perverse delight in drilling them on the set of scriptures
that the Zaeri did not believe in. Terrence, who was watching from
beyond the door, could see the queer laughter hiding behind the
man’s eyes. Both twelve year olds, Terrence and Enoch, had finished
their lessons for the day. Enoch had hurried off to his chores in
the stable, while Terrence had made himself a sandwich.
    He leaned against the doorframe and took a
bite. From this location he could see both the other children at
their studies through the door and the carriage sitting in front of
the house through the open window.