Free The Tower of Fear by Glen Cook Page B

perhaps shutting him off from half athought. What the hell had the man meant?
    That had not been a taunt, nor an accusation, nor even a bald statement offact. It had had an odor of admonition about it, a smell of the cautionaryparable.
    The mass in his gut grew heavier.
    He drifted off to sleep without having figured it out.
    Aaron tore chunks off a sheet of unleavened bread and used them to dip bitesof whatever it was that Mish had made for breakfast. He did not notice that the bread had been burned on one side or that the rest of the meal could not be identified even by someone paying close attention. He barely noticed whatMish was doing while Laella still slept.
    After the late night with Reyha and Naszif they had come home to find Stafarestless and whiny with a mild fever and stubbornly insisting that he had notbeen weaned.
    Aaron thought Laella had made a mistake nursing the boy as long as she had butthat was not on his mind. Nor was he preoccupied with the task that faced himat work. He had not built and set a mast step before, but it was just a job ofcarpentry and he had faith in his skills as a carpenter.
    No. His preoccupation remained Naszif and what, if anything, to do about him.
    And he knew he had come to an impasse because he was unable to remove himselffrom the situation far enough to view it dispassionately. He could notdiscern, much less untangle, his chains of personal and moral and patrioticobligation. If such existed. He was not sure they did.
    It all depended, first, upon the depth of his conviction that Naszif hadopened that hidden postern. If the accusation was mere prejudice, if there wasdoubt about the guilt, if someone else had been the malefactor, then there wasno problem. Naszif could be ignored.
    But if Naszif was guilty, then the Living might be clutching an asp to itsbosom.
    Was it his place to be concerned? He had a sentimental, romantic attachment tothe Living, but no commitment. He wasn't sure he really wanted them to doanything about the occupation. Some out-of-the-dark, miraculous triumph by thediehards might hurt him more than it helped.
    Before the coming of Herod his life had been good. But it was better now. Hegot paid more. And there was as much work as he wanted, so that he could takehome as much money as he wanted. And the Herodian operators never tried tocheat a man of his wages.
    He had prospered under the Herodian occupation. He had been lucky. To balancethe extra mouths in his household Aram in his kindness had given him nodaughters to dowry. He had almost enough saved to get his family out of theShu, over the hill, and into the Astan, where they could have a decent life.
    If Laella did not become pregnant in the next year ...
    He could work for himself in the Astan, doing work he enjoyed. Building shipsrequired craftsmanship but allowed no scope for individual vision or artistry.
    Among the few concrete certainties in Aaron's world was his conviction thatNaszif had opened that postern in that tower.
    Coming home last night he had asked Laella who she considered to be her bestfriend. He had gotten the expected answer without hesitation or reflection: Reyha. Then he had asked who she considered her worst enemy, or who she mosthated. Consciously he had anticipated hearing the name of a neighbor with whomshe had been feuding for years. But unconsciously, maybe, he had expectedsomething akin to the answer he did get after several minutes of reflection.
    "The people who made Taidiki kill himself."
    And that was ambiguous enough to include almost everyone.
    He had wanted to narrow it a little, maybe get a hint of how she would feel ifhe told her about Naszif and the postern, but just then the man had come outof the fog like a specter, startling and frightening them, and had gainedreality only after he had passed them and his feet had begun hitting theground. After that they were too nervous to do anything but hurry for home anda door that could lock out the frights of the night.
    Aaron