Free The Final Quest (The Parsival Saga Book 3) by Richard Monaco Page A

here,” the other replied, sullen, downlooking.
    “Oh, aye,” commented Finlot, “that makes all clear, like a map to a blind man.”
    “We lived here,” the other repeated.
    “Why do you take us off?” Flatface asked, watching the gleaming spear point.
    “Why, we’re forming a great host, and we’ll need good buryers.”
    * * *
    Back in the ditch the flies quarreled and grated. The bodies shifted here and there as their internal halations dictated Some bizarrely erupted into long-latent flatluence; a stiffening arm cocked itself at the dark sky as if with purpose, with only the other dead to witness the unseen salute …
    The ragged man on top of the heap suddenly breathed hard and heavy, chest creaking and popping … gurgled … clenched and unclenched his long, wide, soft hands, volitionlessly plucking at, clutching the twisted, flopped corpses …
    He discovered he was staring at a perfectly round blur of whiteness that floated in a vast dark, and he thought he might be underwater, held enchanted by a spell at the bottom of the sea. Stared at the magical light he knew was holding him in thrall … began gathering the scattered shreds of his will power to fight the imprisoning whiteness … gathering …
    Ye cannot hold me … Ye cannot hold me … I will it! I …
    His body was a soft smear of flesh strung over frozen bones. There was a memory of pain beyond imagination. He vaguely believed the fevers had melted him to this, that the only life in him pulsed like a heatless ember behind his sight, had retreated back and back from the flashes of wild pain …
    Stared and fought the great whiteness, eyes tracking it across what he didn’t know was the sky, never shifting, never releasing the pressure that held the speck of life back from what was lulling away his unfelt body. He felt no peace and sensed no restful darkness or sweet fields, only the struggle, the unending pressure to live, to master the round glow, and knew he’d won when it was chewed to nothing, bottom to top, fraction by fraction by what he didn’t know was the western horizon … then it was gone and he was freed … freed …
    Victory , his mind exulted. Victory …
    Tried to move now … speak … strained … croaked a sound … was blotted out …

 
    XIII
     
    “Another cursed and empty place,” Alienor said, holding Tikla close to her skirts. Sourceless, subtle first dawnlight shadowlessly lifted the broken huts from the void night. Tikla was leaning into her, yawning. Torky was poking around the abandoned place with his bulky father. Long-faced Pleeka was pacing nervously, looking, apparently, at nothing.
    No dead here , Broaditch mused.
    “Father,” said the boy, “did the sickness slay them?”
    “Then the dead buried themselves,” he pointed out. “As scripture says.”
    The hills rose before them, a featureless wall.
    “Did God say that?” Torky asked.
    Broaditch shrugged, flexing his powerful hands.
    “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Which were told is all the same.”
    “God and Jesus are the same?”
    “Well, son, as water in the sea and water in a bucket are the same.” Shrugged. “But I think, unless I grow a pair of Christ eyes myself, I’ll never see if such be sooth or costless words. Meanwhile, we’ll have to trust the priests. That has its defects, however, if you’ve known many priests.” He nudged something with his toe. An empty, cracked pot. “It may be true. It may all be true …” He started walking past the last shadowy hut. He stared into the imperceptibly dissolving night. Thought something had moved across the field by the road.
    “So they’re the same?” Torky persisted, matching his strides to his father’s.
    “That’s no problem for words, son.” Was sure of it now: a gangling figure swayed towards them as if drawing vaguely glimmering form from the substanceless air itself. “Well, someone lives here, mayhap.”
    He glanced back to be certain Alienor was all right. She was still