A Strange and Ancient Name by Josepha Sherman Page B

as he said that, Hauberin wished he could have taken it back; Alliar, after all, resembled no one in all the Realms. But the being only shrugged. “So? That just makes you—ah, what did I hear a lady call you?—intriguingly exotic?”
    “You’re missing my point, Li. Powers, not only don’t I know my mother’s father’s name, I don’t even know what he was! What if the mixture of races brought out some . . . instability, some slowly surfacing . . . weakness of mind—”
    “How dare you!” Alliar’s form blurred and shifted with the force of the being’s sudden indignation. “How dare you belittle yourself?”
    “Ai-yi, hold to one form! You’re making me dizzy.”
    The being grudgingly solidified, golden hair a wild aureole about the fine-boned head, eyes still fierce. “I just will not hear you talk about yourself that way. The boy who slew my . . . master, who freed me from horror: that boy had no ‘weakness of mind,’ and neither, by all the Winds, does the man he’s become!”
    Even Alliar had to stop for breath by that point, and Hauberin, half-astonished, half-touched by his friend’s vehemence, began warily, “But the curse—”
    “Damn the curse!” Alliar stopped again, panting, wild golden mane gradually settling sleekly back into place. So. Enough. It’s the lack of sleep talking, not you.”
    “Probably.”
    “Certainly. Come, let me hear the plot of your dream.”
    The prince gave the ghost of a chuckle. “Yes, Mother.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.” He was deliberately keeping his voice light. “You do understand that such things can’t possibly sound so terrifying in the telling as they are in the dreaming. But, if you must have it: I’m walking down a smooth-walled, featureless corridor, dark, but not so dark I can’t see where I’m going. What I can’t see is the corridor’s far end, but the air is so close and chill that I very much want to turn and run. But I can’t run. Some terrible compulsion drives me on and on, even though I’m becoming almost sick with horror, even though I know there’s something waiting, even though I know that when I see the truth, I will—die.”
    Hauberin broke off with a gasp, shaking. “It’s all right,” Alliar murmured, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re not alone now.”
    “No. Of course not.” After a moment, the prince continued softly, “Each time I sleep, I find myself further down that dark corridor. And lately I’ve been hearing a voice in the dream. All it says is a toneless, ‘Grandson, welcome.’ But there’s something behind the words that’s so very unbearable that I find myself screaming like a child, ‘I will not look! I will not look!’ And with that, of course,” Hauberin finished wearily, “I wake myself up.” He glanced at Alliar. “It sounds foolish now, doesn’t it?”
    “No,” the being murmured. “If, as I’ve heard, dreams seem quite real to the dreamer, then it doesn’t sound foolish at all. But why have you been trying to solve this all by yourself? Did you never think of finding help?”
    “Li, please. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
    “But—”
    “I did consult with Sharailan privately, pretending I spoke of some hypothetical case I’d come across in my studies. I think he believed me; our Sharailan has outlived any deviousness he might once have had. And he seemed genuinely intrigued by the problem. But for all his musings over past magics, he couldn’t come up with a solution. I didn’t dare press him, or go to anyone else. By that point, I couldn’t keep up the pretense long enough or convincingly enough for that. And if anyone should begin to suspect the truth . . . No, Li,” he added before the being could interrupt, “I’m not being overly cautious. Remember that time three years back, when I fell so feverishly ill from drinking seralis, because no one had remembered that the wine was poisonous to humans and might harm me, too?”
    Alliar shuddered.