“I am weary of the road, Mala,” he said in a voice that barely carried over the rushing sound of the waterfall. “I’ve been fighting all my life for things that meant nothing to me. . for masters who thought of me as property and who didn’t care if I lived or died. Now with all this ‘prophecy’ nonsense. . it feels as though everyone wants me to be something or somebody for them again. I’m tired of living my life for everyone else’s expectations. . everyone else’s life.”
“What do you want, Draki?” Mala said quietly.
“I want. .”
Drakis struggled for a moment. It was a new thought for him and he was having trouble even putting it into words.
“I want. . something of my own.”
“Something of your own?”
“Yes,” Drakis said, his words forming with more conviction around the idea. “I want a place like this, a life that has nothing to do with the Iblisi or the Imperium, or mad dwarves, or prophecies, or this damn song that keeps calling me to a destiny I never asked for and certainly do not want. I want. . I want this place, a small home in the village, cool water to drink, food to eat. I want children to raise and a life that is my own to share and. .”
“And?” Mala asked, pushing backward through the water.
“And. . and I want to know how to swim,” he finished.
Mala laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“The great big warrior afraid of the water!”
“Yes,” he sighed.
“Draki. .”
“Yes, Mala?”
“You shouldn’t be afraid,” she said softly. “I’m standing on the bottom. It’s not that deep.”
Invisible to them both, Ethis the chimerian stood watching Drakis and Mala from the shore of the pool. His skin blended so perfectly with the foliage that had they known he was there, they would not have been able to see him even were they looking directly at the spot where he stood.
All they might have discerned was the movement of the cloth as he fingered Mala’s gown where she had draped it over a bush.
But they would have had to look quickly. . for in the next moment, he was gone.
Belag crouched down in the lodge of the Elders, peering intently at the pictographs on the walls.
“Hmmm,” he growled in a low voice, his great eyes narrowing as he looked more intently at the images carved into the wall. “They appear to have some of this wrong.”
It was a perfectly reasonable assumption for the manticore-his faith was sure and unshakable.