Orlind Read Free Page A

searing instant, and then all awareness faded.
     
    When she opened
her eyes once more, she had the sensation that eternity had passed.
Relief flooded her at finding herself alive; but that feeling faded
when she realised that her perfect world was gone. No soft sunshine
met her frightened gaze. The warmth and fragrance of summer was
absent. Worse, no Mamma waited to greet her.
    Instead, she was
in a small, unfamiliar room. She lay in bed, virtually smothered
under the weight of several heavy blankets. Armchairs and bookcases
and cupboards met her wandering gaze: all mundane, and
frighteningly alien. This was not her island, nor was it her
home.
    Growing
frightened, she tried to sit up, but she was swaddled so tightly in
her blankets that she could barely move. She tried to speak, but
nothing emerged from her raw throat save a faint, and to her ears
pathetic, whimper.
    Suddenly the
blankets were ripped away from her and she was grabbed, dragged
into a pair of strong arms and alternately shaken and embraced with
crushing force. Somebody was saying something, but it took some
moments for her confused brain to let go of its tranquil dream and
focus on the reality.
    It was Pensould
who embraced her, of course. He was apparently torn between relief
and anger, for he was scolding her in a stream of words even as he
held her to him with enough force to knock all the breath out of
her.
    ‘ Who
could have guessed that I had saddled myself with such a lazy and
indolent minchu? ’ he was saying. ‘You will sleep your life
away, little idiot, and never spare a thought for those unfortunate
beings you leave behind. What of your parents, hm? Will you go into
the Long Sleep without even me?’
    ‘ Pensould,’ she managed at last in a dry croak.
‘Stop.’
    ‘ Stop?’ he raged. ‘Is that all you’ve to say to me,
wretched one? You ought to be eaten for your laziness. That is what
should be done with lazy children like yourself. What more have you
to say?’
    ‘ You’re... killing me, ’ she gasped.
    His arms loosed
their choking grip and he sat back a little.
    ‘ It
would serve you right, my wicked Minchu, if I did squeeze you to
death,’ he retorted. ‘Tis undoubtedly what you deserve for the
many, many hours of painful anticipation you’ve given
me.’
    ‘ That’s harsh,’ she objected. She might have said more, but she
was occupied with replenishing her supply of air.
    ‘ Is
it?’ Pensould demanded. ‘Do you deny that you’ve been living in a
most-happy dream world while the rest of us fret and worry out our
hearts over you?’
    ‘ I
don’t deny it,’ she said crossly. ‘It was nice up
there.’
    He snorted. ‘Of
course it was. What you were doing, disgraceful one, was wandering
off, merry as a lamb, into your Long Sleep. That is, death, in your
terms. Of course it was pleasant.’
    He sounded so
grumpy that Llan’s heart sank. She had been ripped from her
comfortable world and restored, most abruptly, to a reality that
offered only disaster and despair. She was distraught enough
without suffering such severe disapproval from him as
well.
    ‘ I
don’t understand,’ she said, easing her weakened body into a
sitting position and crossing her legs. ‘I wasn’t
dying.’
    ‘ Yes,’
he corrected. ‘You were. That state is precisely the state I placed
myself into when I wished to stop living. Its eventual result is
the slowing of all bodily processes until they cease, after which
the body itself decays. It is a most pleasant way to pass
on.’
    Llandry felt a
flicker of alarm. ‘Then why didn’t you wake me sooner?’
    ‘ It
had not occurred to me that you could accomplish the draykon Long
Sleep in a human body,’ he snapped. ‘Nor that you would ,
indolent one. Luckily for us both, the possibility occurred to me
in time. I have no idea whether draykon regeneration is also accessible to you in this shape you insist on wearing, and I would
not like to test that just at the present.’
    It occurred