The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr Page 3

  Laren opened the door. No room inside; only a wall of moving fog, a fog without color or sound or light. “Your gate, my lady,” the singer said.

  Sharra watched it, as she had watched it so many times before. What world was next? she wondered. She never knew. But maybe in the next one, she would find Kaydar.

  She felt Laren's hand on her shoulder. “You hesitate,” he said, his voice soft.

  Sharra's hand went to her knife. “The guardian,” she said suddenly: “There is always a guardian.” Her eyes darted quickly round the courtyard.

  Laren sighed. “Yes. Always. There are some who try to claw you to pieces, and some who try to get you lost, and some who try to trick you into taking the wrong gate. There are some who hold you with weapons, some with chains, some with lies. And there is one, at least, who tried to stop you with love. Yet he was true for all that, and he never sang you false."

  And with a hopeless, loving shrug, Laren shoved her through the gate.

  * * * *

  Did she find him, in the end, her lover with the eyes of fire? Or is she searching still? What guardian did she face next?

  When she walks at night, a stranger in a lonely land, does the sky have stars?

  I don't know. He doesn't. Maybe even the Seven do not know. They are powerful, yes, but all power is not theirs, and the number of worlds is greater than even they can count.

  There is a girl who goes between the worlds, but her path is lost in legend by now. Maybe she is dead, and maybe not. Knowledge moves slowly from world to world, and not all of it is true.

  But this we know; in an empty castle below a purple sun, a lonely minstrel waits, and sings of her.

  * * *

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