Страница 41 из 59
*
“What were you thinking?” Theor had his hands half-raised, poised as if arrested in the midst of some violent movement. He could not tear his gaze away from them. His eyes took in the aged, slack hide that his skin had become, the terrible impotence of these limbs that once, surely, must have felt capable and powerful. The fury that was in him was in them too, seething and burning in the palms and the fingers. And it was such a pathetic thing, that fury. It was empty, powerless to change anything. Powerless even, he felt, to express itself honestly. “What were you thinking?” he cried again at Ave
IV
When Theor woke, it was from an intermittent slumber that had done nothing to renew him. He rose stiffly and dressed. His skin felt every scrape of his robe’s rough material. He felt no hunger or thirst, no desire of any kind that might lead him out from this bare chamber. Yet there was nothing to hold him here either. Solitude brought no easing of his despair. He went out, and found others clustered in the corridor, conferring in muted whispers. They looked up, startled, at his emergence. “You should see…” one of them stammered. He let them lead him to the walls of the Sanctuary. Let them guide him up the steps onto the narrow walkway cut into its i