Free Book 3 - The White Rose by Glen Cook

the TelleKurre.”
    “He wouldn’t be buried here, though.”
    “It’s his armor, Pop.”
    “I can see that, dammit.” He popped up like a
curious groundhog. No one in sight. “Sit up here and keep
watch. I’ll dig it out.”
    “You sit, Pop.”
    “You were up all night.”
    “I’m a lot younger than you are.”
    “I’m feeling just fine, thank you.”
    “What color is the sky, Pop?”
    “Blue. What kind of
question . . . ”
    “Hallelujah. We agree on something. You’re the most
contrary old goat . . . ”
    “Stancil!”
    “Sorry, Pop. We’ll take turns. Flip a coin to see
who goes first.”
    Bomanz lost. He settled down with his pack as a backrest.
“Going to have to spread the dig out. Going straight down
like this, it’ll cave in first heavy rain.”
    “Yeah. Be a lot of mud. Ought to think about a drainage
trench. Hey, Pop, there’s nobody in this thing. Looks like
the rest of his armor, too.” Stancil had recovered a gauntlet
and uncovered part of a greave.
    “Yeah? I hate to turn it in.”
    “Turn it in? Why? Tokar could get a fortune for
it.”
    “Maybe so. But what if friend Men fu did spot it?
He’ll tell Besand out of spite. We’ve got to stay on
his good side. We don’t need this stuff.”
    “Not to mention he might have planted it.”
    “What?”
    “It shouldn’t be here, right? And no body inside the
armor. And the soil is loose.”
    Bomanz grunted. Besand was capable of a frame. “Leave
everything the way it is. I’ll go get him.”
    “Sour-faced old fart,” Stancil muttered as the
Monitor departed. “I bet he did plant it.”
    “No sense cussing. We can’t do anything.”
Bomanz settled against his pack.
    “What’re you doing?”
    “Loafing. I don’t feel like digging anymore.”
He ached all over. It had been a busy morning.
    “We should get what we can while the weather is
good.”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Pop . . . ” Stancil thought
better of it. “How come you and Mom fight all the
time?”
    Bomanz let his thoughts drift. The truth was elusive. Stance
would not remember the good years. “I guess because people
change and we don’t want them to.” He could find no
better words. “You start out with a woman; she’s
magical and mysterious and marvelous, the way they sing it. Then
you get to know each other. The excitement goes away. It gets
comfortable. Then even that fades. She starts to sag and turn grey
and get lined and you feel cheated. You remember the fey, shy one
you met and talked with till her father threatened to plant a boot
in your ass. You resent this stranger. So you take a poke. I guess
it’s the same for your mother. Inside, I’m still
twenty. Stance. Only if I pass a mirror, or if my body won’t
do what I want, do I realize that I’m an old man. I
don’t see the potbelly and the varicose veins and the grey
hair where I’ve got any left. She has to live with it.
    “Every time I see a mirror I’m amazed. I end up
wondering who’s taken over the outside of me. A disgusting
old goat, from the look of him. The kind I used to snicker at when
I was twenty. He scares me, Stance. He looks like a dying man.
I’m trapped inside him, and I’m not ready to
go.”
    Stancil sat down. His father never talked about his feelings.
“Does it have to be that way?”
    Maybe not, but it always is . . . 
“Thinking about Glory, Stance? I don’t know. You
can’t get out of getting old. You can’t get out of
having a relationship change.”
    “Maybe none of it has to be. If we manage
this . . . ”
    “Don’t tell me about maybes, Stance. I’ve been
living on maybes for thirty years.” His ulcer took a sample
nibble from his gut. “Maybe Besand is right. For the wrong
reasons.”
    “Pop! What are you talking about? You’ve given your
whole life to this.”
    “What I’m saying, Stance, is that I’m scared.
It’s one thing to chase a dream. It’s another to catch
it. You never get what you expect. I have a premonition