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“Yes That You Lunes are farandaddy bitten in the face by a Venusian ala Took a chunk out of his cheek and he didn’t even flinch Just bit the thing back, threw it to its handler, and ordered chaht be too hot-blooded for the h yours Your friend died today And so did randniece” She reflects on thes from her pipe

“I will miss them Even that noxious scorpion, Bellerephon But I will not say I aet pricked Like o But you are different Your weapon is in there…” She pokesas me, you will learn this pain is just a drop in the sea” She sets a hand on my heart, her eyes intense “So feel all of it, boy, before tiet”

“Could you play so for them?” I ask

“For them?”

“The departed Cassius and your kin A requiem, perhaps?”

She laughs “Yes Yes I like your gray , slow, ers drift over the keys, the song wakes sorief—a shadow, a shadow of a shadow in the library of otten I feel a presence at h there is no one there I sainst o

Gaia senses my unease “Are you well, child?”

“Yes,” I say distantly, only now realizing that I’ve setI should take s throughfrom it like dirty snow from a statue I find another key My eyes close My handsed and hidden so I did not even knoas once there But now it flies The cobwebs of my mind burn away

My hands glide along the keys and a song pours out, a requiem for Cassius and all those others I have lost I’m swept away by its music to a far-off study where a fire crackles and a ss She is behindaroundeyes and truculentback on the wings of the s in the air and er on the keys, I sit there breathless, tears streaking my face

I look over at Gaia, confused

“I thought you couldn’t play,” she says

“I can’t,” I ot”

“How could you forget so like that? It was splendid, child”

“I don’t know” For a breath, for the briefest flicker, I saw her The face of my mother The soft skin The small nose and strident mouth Those eyes that burned in a face ti else that stole it away, a lock placed upon her memory that the music unfastened?

“Mynow