Dark God by T C Southwell Read Free Book Online Page A

expression.
    "What do you want from me?"
    Ellese let her hand fall. "Ah,
Bane, always expecting traps and trickery. That is what they did to
you, is it not? Offered a little friendship, made you pay dearly
for it, then revoked it. That is what Yangarra did, and you
destroyed him in the end. That is when you discovered the answer to
your problem. If you cannot have it, destroy it so it may not be
offered to anyone else or used against you. And once you have shown
those who dared to mock and abuse you what you are capable of
doing, they will not dare to taunt you again. I want nothing from
you but your hand in mine. Take it."
    Again she reached out to him. It
seemed to Mirra that he would not take it, that Ellese's gesture of
friendship and reconciliation was wasted on a man as bitter as he.
Then her eyes burnt as Bane raised his hand. He stared down at it
as if amazed that anyone would want to hold it. He was used to
being feared, shunned, and avoided at all costs. The very concept
of friendship was alien to him, she was certain, and of love he
knew even less. The fact that he could kill the person who dared to
touch him as easily as he had done Emperor Agden was enough to
prevent most people from offering their hands in friendship.
    Mirra surmised that it was for
exactly this reason that Ellese offered hers, not to test him, but
to show him that she trusted him, and did not perceive him as a
monster. Those around Bane had moulded him all his life, first the
demons that had taught him to hate, then the people whose fear had
taught him to scorn them. This was his first lesson in friendship
and trust. He did not stretch his hand out to Ellese, but she
closed the gap and gripped his. A smile of joy and relief lighted
her face, and Mirra realised that she had been totally unsure of
his reaction. His inherent human side warred with the dark power
within him, and he could just as easily have rejected her.
    "At last," Ellese murmured,
smiling. "For all these years I have longed to touch you. Your
weeping haunted my dreams, and I yearned to reach out to you, but
could not. You have learnt that the greatest torture for a healer
is to feel another's pain, but be unable to help them. Imagine my
torture, to see and hear a small, innocent boy, suffering alone in
the dark, and being able to do nothing. Twenty years of suffering.
Twenty years of watching you grow from a frightened child into a
large, bitter man. It is over now, you are home." Absently she
brushed a tear from her cheek.
    Bane stared down at her, his
eyes still filled with confusion. Ellese reached up and touched the
red mark on his face, where she had hit him earlier. "I am sorry I
hit you, perhaps you did not deserve it. You did not know you were
not alone. I am a stranger to you, but you are not to me."
    A trickle of blood ran down
Bane's chin from his split lip. Ellese raised a hand to wipe it
away, but he leant away from her, and she let it fall with a sad
sigh. She still held his hand, and if she could, she would probably
have hugged him. Mirra had not understood Bane's strange ways, yet
Ellese obviously did, and she began to understand why he was the
way he was.
    All the time she had been with
him, she had not thought to offer him friendship, give him a choice
in the matter. She had been so desperate to help him that she had
thrust her friendship upon him, and he, rebelling, had rejected it.
If only she had understood from whence his bitterness and hatred
stemmed, she might have made the same impression on him that Ellese
was making now.
    Perhaps deducing that she was
putting too much pressure on him, too soon, Ellese stepped back,
releasing his hand. Bane rubbed it as she turned and walked up the
steps. Mirra started after her, but Bane stayed at the bottom,
frowning. She beckoned, and he followed with a suspicious glance at
the healers behind him. Ellese led the way into the chapel, where
Bane's boots rang on the smooth marble floor. The eternal flame
burnt at the