For the sake of the world, you should pray, L'oric, that all she has of her father is the blue skin.'
'You know, then, who that man was?'
'Korbolo Dom.'
'Ah. He is, I believe, still alive. A guest of the Empress.'
'Do you think I care, L'oric? I was drowning in durhang. If not for Heboric, I'd still be one of Bidithal's butchered acolytes.
Heboric…' She looked down at the babe suckling from her left breast, squinting through the smoke of the pipe. Then she glared up at L'oric.
'And now some damned T'lan Imass have killed him – why?'
'He was a servant of Treach. Scillara, there is war now among the gods. And it is us mortals who shall pay the price for that. It is a dangerous time to be a true worshipper – of anyone or anything.
Except, perhaps, chaos itself, for if one force is ascendant in this modern age, it is surely that.'
Greyfrog was busy licking itself, concentrating, it seemed, on its new limbs. The entire demon looked… smaller.
Scillara said, 'So you're reunited with your familiar, L'oric. Which means you can go now, off to wherever and whatever it is you have to do. You can leave, and get as far away from here as possible. I'll wait for Cutter to wake up. I like him. I think I'll go where he goes.
This grand quest is done. So go away.'
'Not until I am satisfied that you will not surrender your child to an unknown future, Scillara.'
'It's not unknown. Or at least, no more unknown than any future. There are two women here both named Jessa and they'll take care of it. They' ll raise it well enough, since they seem to like that sort of thing.
Good for them, I say. Besides, I'm being generous here – I'm not selling it, am I? No, like a damned fool, I'm giving the thing away.'
'The longer and the more often you hold that girl,' L'oric said, 'the less likely it is that you will do what you presently plan to do.
Motherhood is a spiritual state – you will come to that realization before too long.'
'That's good, so why are you still here? Clearly, I'm already doomed to enslavement, no matter how much I rail.'
'Spiritual epiphany is not enslavement.'
'Shows how much you know, High Mage.'
'I feel obliged to tell you, your words have crushed Greyfrog.'
'He'll survive it – he seems able to survive everything else. Well, I' m about to switch tits here, you two eager to watch?'
L'oric spun on his heel and left.
Greyfrog's large eyes blinked translucently up at Scillara. 'I am not crushed. Brother of mine misapprehends. Broods climb free and must fend, each runtling holds to its own life. Recollection. Many dangers.
Transitional thought. Sorrow. I must now accompany my poor brother, for he is well and truly distressed by many things in this world.
Warmth. I shall harbour well my adoration of you, for it is a pure thing by virtue of being ever unattainable, the consummation thereof.
Which would, you must admit, be awkward indeed.'
'Awkward isn't the first word that comes to my mind, Greyfrog. But thank you for the sentiment, as sick and twisted as it happens to be.
Listen, try and teach L'oric, will you? Just a few things, like, maybe, humility. And all that terrible certainty – beat it down, beat it out of him. It's making him obnoxious.'
'Paternal legacy, alas. Loric's own parents… ah, never mind.
Farewell, Scillara. Delicious fantasies, slow and exquisitely unveiled in the dark swampy waters of my imagination. All that need sustain me in fecund spirit.'
The demon waddled out.
Hard gums clamped onto her right nipple. Pain and pleasure, gods what a miserable, confusing alliance. Well, at least all the lopsidedness would go away – Nulliss had been planting the babe on her left ever since it had come out. She felt like a badly packed mule.
More voices in the outer room, but she didn't bother listening.
They'd taken Felisin Younger. That was the cruellest thing of all. For Heboric, at least, there was now some peace, an end to whatever had tormented him, and besides, he'd been an old man. Enough had been asked of him. But Felisin…
Scillara stared down at the creature on her chest, its tiny grasping hands, then she settled her head against the back wall and began repacking her pipe.
****
Something formless filling his mind, what had been timeless and only in the last instants, in the drawing of a few breaths, did awareness arrive, carrying him from one moment to the next. Whereupon Cutter opened his eyes. Old grey tree-trunks spanned the ceiling overhead, the joins thick with cobwebs snarled around the carcasses of moths and flies. Two lanterns hung from hooks, their wicks low. He struggled to recall how he had ended up here, in this unfamiliar room.
