Prev | Current Page 234 | Next

Leadem, Christopher

"The Mantooth"

'You knew there were
other humans, and you never told me? My God, Kalus, why?'
'Because I was afraid.'
'Afraid of what?' she demanded.
'Afraid that if you knew there were others, you would have less need
of me. That you would not love me as much, always wondering.....'
'Oh, Kalus, that's so unfair! How could you think so little of
me?' But even as she denied his words, she knew they held a grain of
truth.
'I'm sorry,' he said. Finding no other expression, he repeated.
'I'm sorry.'
For a moment she had forgotten him, and the effect her resentment would
have. Now she looked at him, at the weary, washed-out face of long ago,
and remembered.
'OH.' She came behind and wrapped her arms around his chest and
held him tightly. 'It's all right. I understand.'
With little further speech the two worked on the nets until night forced
them back into the cave, a small hollow bored into smooth stone twenty
feet above the sand. It was neither spacious nor comfortable, but Kalus
did not intend to remain there long.
Both knew, as later in the dead of night he opened his heart to her,
that they must leave the roots of their past and strike out to a new
destination. To the Island, where Kalus had often marked the smoke of
fires, and where he hoped to find some answer to the questions that
unsettled him, not the least of which was the riddle of the Children of
the Sea.


Pages:
222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246