Free Nightpool by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Page A

breed children.
“Because of the mark,” he said. “Only I don’t understand about the
mark. I don’t understand why it is important.”
    Renata looked at him for a long time without
saying anything. Then all she said was, “You should keep the mark
covered, Tebriel. It might help to save you from Quazelzeg.”
    “Who is Quazelzeg? Why does he seek
to enslave all of Tirror?”
    “He is the unliving,” said Pixen.
    “The dead . . . ?” Teb began.
    “No, Tebriel. Not the dead. The unliving.
There is a vast difference.”
    Teb waited, not understanding.
    “Death, Tebriel,” said Renata softly, “is
not a condition. It is not a permanent state. It is merely a
passing through. A journey into another world, and into another
self. Death is not an ending.
    “Don’t you remember, when you were small,
feeling that there was something you’d forgotten? Something you
almost knew, almost remembered—then it was gone?”
    “I still do that,” Teb said.
    “So it will be in the life after this one.
Fragments of this life and of all other lives will come to you
unclearly—for all are linked, Tebriel. You take from one into the
next, though you don’t remember.
    “But to be unliving is very different. It is
not like the crossing-over experience of death. It is, precisely, no experience. Precisely un living. The unliving
embrace and feed on the opposite to everything we find warm and
joyous and filled with life. They feed on nothingness, on all that
turns from life. They hate folk who go about their own pursuits
with vigor and joy; they hate the strength one feels in self. They
want all creatures massed in sameness, and enslaved. They hate the
deep linking of one person’s life with another, the linking of
generations, the tales of one’s childhood and one’s parent’s
childhood, the memories that link a family, a nation, and so link
all of us. Let me show you. . . .”
    The vixen looked deep into Teb’s eyes, and
her pale silver face seemed to grow lighter still and her dark eyes
larger until Teb could see nothing else, until he swam in that
bright darkness. “Remember your mother, Tebriel. See her
. . . see her . . . Remember your father, your
sister. Remember their faces, their voices, and the things you did
together. Remember it all. . . .”
    The memories came flooding, a hundred
memories surrounding him. They were galloping over green hills, the
four of them, Cannery’s pale hair flying, their mother laughing as
her horse plunged up a steep hillside. Then they were at supper in
their quiet private chambers, their father was carving roast lamb,
the room filled with its sweet gamy scent, and there was a white
tureen brimming with onions and mushrooms. His mother wore a pale
yellow dress, and was laughing. All the memories came flooding:
being tucked into his bed, his first pony, Camery sewing a quilt,
his mother’s garden, Camery’s owl. . . .
    And then suddenly the memories vanished. He
caught his breath. There was only emptiness.
    There was nothing.
    He could not remember how his mother looked,
could not remember the color of her hair, how his father
looked. . . . There was a
girl. . . .
    His mind was gray and empty.
    The only link he had with himself or
anything real was a pair of dark huge eyes in a pale face—what was
this creature? Why was he here . . . ?
    “Who am I?
    “My name—I don’t know my
name. . . .” He was
shaking. . . .
    Then suddenly the world popped back to fill
his mind bright and loud . . .
alive—alive. . . . The tales of his father’s
childhood in Auric, running on the sandy shore . . . the
tales his mother told him, his own memories—all of it thronging and
churning in his mind singing and alive. . . .
    The little silver vixen was there before
him, her dark eyes watching him with concern. “And so, Tebriel, you
have seen as the unliving would have it. They would destroy your
memory and knowledge, and so destroy your self.
    “So is