Kissed by Starlight Read Free Page A

he had last known the bliss of those who dwelt in the Living Lands.
    In the beginning, he’d wondered if his semi-awareness had been the final refinement of cruelty on the part of the king that had cursed him. If he’d been nothing more than a statue, he would not have known grief for his loss. Yet as it was, the slow roll of years had brought their torment.
    Sira, his once-love, and the mortal mate she’d chosen had been kind to him. They’d placed him in the garden where the sun and moon could shine on him, their beauty the same in both worlds. The tiny daily changes of season had been entertainment when not blasted and destroyed by the folly of man.
    Sira would come at times to speak to him, to show him her children. They had cared for him too after she had taken the way that all mortals must, sooner or later, tread. After she came no more, he had lost all interest for a long, long time. When he took notice again, even the children’s children of those who had known his story were all dead and the tale had lost much in the telling.
    Nothing he had seen in all the years since had improved his poor opinion of the human kind. Their lives were so brief and seemed so pointless, filled up with racing hither and yon to no purpose. He watched them when he could, bitterly envying even their limited opportunities and, at the same time, scoffing at the way they wasted their lives. Sometimes children under a benevolent tutor or governess would learn their lessons in the garden. Under the hot summer sky, Blaic learned some of what went on in the outside world—wars, great and small; kings and cardinals; and the rise and fall of this house of Hamdry.
    He stepped through the portal without a backward glance.
    Even nearly seven centuries meant little in the Living Lands. Here, nothing changed. The long houses, their roofs bright with the dropped feathers of countless birds, were havens of peace and beauty. The very grass glowed a welcome while the great pavilions of brilliant silk hummed in the cool breeze that bore scents of both sea and meadow.
    Yet...
    The vast white silk tent, all oversewn with jewels, dazzled no eyes but his own. The People were not crowded there to hear the words of Boadach.
    Nearby, the Gathering Pavilion was laid for a banquet of two hundred, every wooden plate smooth as glass after centuries of being washed by the strong arms of the wyrcan maids. Yet where were the guests? Where were the wyrcan? If there was to be a feast, the cheerful workers of the People should be at their labors, singing and laughing as they created their homely magic.
    His heart beating hard, Blaic ran out into the center of the wide field. Perhaps they had all gathered in the Great Hall to hear the harp masters play and sing. How many times had he stood there, listening to the music yet knowing nothing of its shimmering beauty, for before his eyes stood the yet more glorious beauty of Sira, daughter of the king?
    “Depend on it,” he said, and the sound of his own voice was startlingly loud in the reverberating silence. “They are all there.”
    Yet when he arrived, it was to the same feeling of having come to a feast only after all was over. The Fire of Assembly leapt and danced in the stone-surrounded pit, making the intricate carving on chairs and stone walls seem to writhe with life. But it was no more than a mockery.
    Blaic sank down into a chair. He rubbed his face and tried to think. For nearly six hundred and fifty years he had been alone. Was he now to be even more alone?
    He heard a scraping sound and looked up eagerly. A small table inched its way over the stone flags to his side. When it reached him, he touched it and felt it shake as though someone had just let go of it.
    A red pottery jug flew out of the shadowed distance and landed on the table, a splash of beer leaping over the edge as it came to rest, followed at once by a wooden tankard.
    “Many thanks,” Blaic said as he poured himself a drink. The beer had the