white and ominous, in her fingers.
He did not shrink from her, nor eye her weapons. He met her glance with his, and
held, willing to take either outcome-anything but go on the way he was.
Then he heard the hardness of her laugh, and prepared himself to face the tithe
collectors who held the mortgage on his soul.
Her aspect of blond youthfulness fell away with her laughter, and she stepped
near him, saying, “Love, you offer me? You know my curse, do you not?”
“I can lift it, if you but spend one year with me.”
“You can lift it? Why should I believe you, father of magic? Not even gods must
tell the truth, and you, I own, are beyond even the constraints of right and
wrong which gods obey.”
“Will you not help me, and help yourself? Your beauty will not fade; I can give
youth unending, and heal your heart, if you but heal mine.” His hand,
outstretched to her, quivered. His eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Shall you
spend eternity as a murderer and a whore, for no reason? Take salvation, now it
is offered. Take it for us both. Neither of us could claim such a boon from
eternity again.”
Cime shrugged, and the woman’s eyes so much older than the three decades her
body showed impaled him. “Some kill politicians, some generals, foot soldiers in
the field. As for me, I think the mages are the problem, twisting times and
worlds about like children play with string. And as for help, what makes you
think either you or I deserve it? How many have you aided, without commensurate
gain? When old Four-Eyes-Spitting-Fire-And-Four-Mouths-Spit-ting-Curses came