[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Each was bell-mouthed and with a curling goldguard over the trigger.Burzmali had returned to his conversation with the green-eyed man.It was anargument over how they would be disguised.She listened with part of her mindwhile she studied the two members of their escort remaining in the room.Theother three from the escort had filed out through a passage near the weaponscabinet, an opening covered by a thick hanging of shimmering silvery threads.Duncan, she saw, was watching her responses with care, his hand on the smalllasgun in his belt.People of the Scattering? Lucilla wondered.What are their loyalties?Casually, she crossed to Duncan's side and, using the finger-touch language onhis arm, relayed her suspicions.Both of them looked at Burzmali.Treachery?Lucilla went back to her study of the room.Were they being watched by unseeneyes?Nine glowglobes lighted the space, creating their own peculiar islands ofintense illumination.It reached outward into a common concentration near whereBurzmali still talked to the green-eyed man.Part of the light came directlyfrom the drifting globes, all of them tuned into rich gold, and part of it wasreflected more softly off the algae.The result was a lack of dark shadows,even under the furnishings.The shimmering silver threads of the inner doorway parted.An old woman enteredthe room.Lucilla stared at her.The woman had a seamed face as dark as oldrosewood.Her features were sharply defined in a narrow frame of straggling gray hair that fell almost to her shoulders.She wore a long black robe workedwith golden threads in a pattern of mythological dragons.The woman stoppedbehind a settee and placed her deeply veined hands on the back.Burzmali and his companion broke off their conversation.Lucilla looked from the old woman down to her own robe.Except for the goldendragons, the garments were similar in design, the hoods draped back onto theshoulders.Only in the side cut and the way it opened down the front was thedesign of the dragon robe different.When the woman did not speak, Lucilla looked to Burzmali for explanation.Burzmali stared back at her with a look of intense concentration.The old womancontinued to study Lucilla silently.The intensity of attention filled Lucilla with disquiet.Duncan felt it, too,she saw.He kept his hand on the small lasgun.The long silence while eyesexamined her amplified her unease.There was something almost Bene Gesseritabout the way the old woman just stood there looking.Duncan broke the silence, demanding of Burzmali: "Who is she?""I'm the one who'll save your skins," the old woman said.She had a thin voicethat crackled weakly, but that same strange accent.Lucilla's Other Memories brought up a suggestive comparison for the old woman'sgarment: Similar to that worn by ancient playfems.Lucilla almost shook her head.Surely this woman was too old for such a role.And the shape of the mythic dragons worked into the fabric differed from thosesupplied by memory.Lucilla returned her attention to the old face: eyes humidwith the illnesses of age.A dry crust had settled into the creases where eacheyelid touched the channels beside her nose.Far too old for a playfem.The old woman spoke to Burzmali."I think she can wear it well enough." Shebegan divesting herself of her dragon robe.To Lucilla she said: "This is foryou.Wear it with respect.We killed to get it for you.""Who did you kill?" Lucilla demanded."A postulant of the Honored Matres!" There was pride in the old woman's huskytone."Why should I wear that robe?" Lucilla demanded."You will trade garments with me," the old woman said."Not without explanation." Lucilla refused to accept the robe being extended toher.Burzmali took one step forward."You can trust her.""I am a friend of your friends," the old woman said.She shook the robe infront of Lucilla."Here, take it."Lucilla addressed Burzmali."I must know your plan." "We both must know it," Duncan said."On whose authority are we asked to trustthese people?""Teg's," Burzmali said."And mine." He looked at the old woman."You can tellthem, Sirafa.We have time
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]