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back in a prim bun, dressed in a cloak the color of autumn leaves. Ruth
answered the door herself, turning down Michael's offer flatly.
"She's my problem, really," Ruth said. "When she called, I invited her here.
I'll greet her at my own front door."
For a moment, the two women faced each other over the threshold, and Michael
saw his great-great-
grandmother for the first time. Side by side, Ruth and Salafrance Underhill
looked remarkably alike, but there was no denying Salafrance was a pure Sidhe
and Ruth was largely human.
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"Great-granddaughter," Salafrance said, her voice even more beautiful than
Ulath's, almost as entrancing as the voice of the Ban of Hours. "You have
dreamed of me. I've felt your dreams, even across the world and beyond."
"Hello," Ruth said, struggling with remarkable success to control her
shivering.
"Is it customary that I should wait out here?"
"No," Ruth said smoothly. "Come in."
Salafrance drifted through the door, seeming as tall and slender as a tree,
her long face and cold eyes difficult to read as she looked from person to
person, lingering on Kristine and her improbably wide belly and then turning
her full attention to Michael, who stood by the couch in the living room,
feeling awkward and young all over again.
"I did not know my love for men would lead to this," she said. "I followed the
way of Elme for five hundred years, but out of an inner perversity, not by
plan. Granddaughter, this is your husband?" She indicated John with a nod of
her long chin.
"His name is " Ruth began.
"Yes. I have been watching you all for some time. I hope that does not upset
you."
Ruth swallowed hard but shook her head.
"I have much to apologize for. I did not prepare my children adequately. I am
afraid they issued foolish edicts and did not understand who or what they
were, and how they must choose mates wisely. You suffered for this,
Great-granddaughter."
Michael could read his mother's emotions, barely held in check  half an urge
to order Salafrance from her house, and half simply to weep. She did neither.
Salafrance sat in the living room at Ruth's invitation and gestured for
Kristine to sit beside her.
"Does he read your child for you?" she asked.
"Michael?" Kristine asked, embarrassed. "Yes. He does"
"And is it a maker, as well?"
"We don't know," Michael said.
"Male or female?"
"Female," Kristine said. "The doctors confirmed it."
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Salafrance smiled ironically. Her almond eyes could have been regarding
anybody in the room at any given moment, without the slightest impression of
darting about. "Power is carried by the female& Great granddaughter," she
said, focusing her full attention now on Ruth.
"Yes?"
"I am proud of you, most proud."
Ruth smiled. Michael knew then that his mother would never come to love or
even be comfortable around
Salafrance Underhill, but she could now be comfortable within herself.
She had not failed her heritage.
At dinner, as Salafrance picked at rice and vegetables, she asked, "Where is
the nectar of mages?"
"I gave it back to my father," Michael said.
"It's in my wine-cellar. Closet, actually," John said.
"It has waited long enough, don't you think?"
"Sidhe don't drink, Grandmother," Michael said quietly.
"Do you know the rule  always forbidden, on occasion mandatory?"
Michael nodded.
"This is such an occasion," Salafrance decreed.
"I'll bring it," John said, pushing his chair back from the table.
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"I am told, and I have felt, that you are in control of this world now, of its
making and its song," she said to Michael. "This is so?"
"It is so," Michael said.
"And what sort of mage are you?"
Michael smiled. "That's a broad question."
"Are you an obvious one, dancing with the song at all times, watching the
steps of all who dance with you?"
"He doesn't meddle," Kristine said defensively. "Hardly anybody knows what he
does or who he is."
Michael patted her hand.
"I& don't want to control everybody or act as a policeman," he said. "I don't
think I should have any real authority over how people behave or make moral
judgments. I won't impose my will on others. I'm a poet, not a master. I may
tune the instruments, but I don't lay down every note of the song."
"And if it comes about that the races try to destroy the balance again?"
"I'll write that bridge when I come to it," he said, irritated that she should
see so quickly what worried him most about the future.
"You are a very young mage," Salafrance said. John returned with the opaque,
time-darkened bottle of wine.
"What is its provenance?" Salafrance asked.
John was puzzled, uncertain how to answer. "Arno Waltiri gave it to us."
"The human who shared his body with the Cledar mage& ?"
"The same," Michael said. "He had it from David Clark-ham. I've heard Clarkham
stole it from Adonna."
"We should all drink& " Salafrance said. "Except for Kristine, who bears
perhaps another maker, one who will drink this wine in her own due course."
"I don't think I could stomach it anyway," Kristine said. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]