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other four Weirds followed his lead. "We beg your forgiveness, Weavers," the man said, "for betraying you, for stealing your children, for plotting against you, and for failing to guide you. We made errors, and com- pounded the errors by betraying the principle that should have guided us never unweave, never destroy." Darryl took a moment to make the transition from expecting disaster to figuring out something gracious to say. He would have loved roasting the sons of bitches who kid- napped his lads and trashed his life, but the Weirds were right. "Never unweave, never destroy" was a good rule. He wouldn't have had his kids without it- "You are forgiven," he said. He thought of adding some- thing sort of flowery and formal, but decided against it. He was stretching the truth as it was. Minerva evidently thought so. too. She looked at him out of the corners of her eyes and arched an eyebrow in disbe- lief. Then she shrugged. "There is no anger between us." 7 wouldn't bet on that, Darryl thought, eyeing his wife. You toasted a bunch oftheir folks. And I fed a bunch more to dragons. I'd be willing to bet there d be plenty of anger if they didn't think showing it would get the rest of them cooked as Birkwelch's dinner. MINERVA WAKES 269 Page 207 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "You are truly gracious," the big guy said, and stood. An awkward silence followed, until one of the women at his side gave him a surrepetitious jab in the ribs with her elbow. He dissembled well. turning the tvoof of pain into an almost natural-sounding cough. "Because of the hardship we have caused you, and the disorder we have wreaked m your life, we hereby offer Eyrith as home for you and your family for however long you choose to stay here." "You are generous and land," Minerva said, "but we have other plans." She gsswe them a nice little bow, and in the smoothest brush-off Darryl had ever seen from her, she added, "Which we really must be attending to now. If you will excuse us " The Weirds' relief was so evident it was comical and they were perfectly willing to take a hint. They reformed into "fly-ugly" mode, and within an instant were launched and winging their way home. Birkwelch cocked an eye-ridge and looked from Minerva to Darryl. That seems sort of premature. I'd have thought you would at least have considered staying here. Eyrith is about as much like your homeworld as anyplace you're going to find," "We're going home," Darryl said. Minerva nodded- "Ah, guys," the dragon said, "I hate to be the party- pooper, but back home, you folks are dead. Don't you think that might make things difficult? Just a little? Eh?" "We've already figured that out," Minerva said. "We're going to go back in time to die point where all this mess started. Only this time, we're going to do things differently." "Ah, no " Birkwelch, shook his head with such vehe- mence Darryl almost expected him to dislocate his neck. "Why not?" Darryl asked. "We've learned our lesson. When we go back, we'll do things the way we should have done them the first time." The dragon kept swinging his head back and forth. "No, you won't. Or rather, no, you didn't. You've learned better now. but back then, you made your choices. And the past does not come with an eraser. You go back, and all you'u do 270 Holly Lisle is form a loop in time, so that you get to relive this little adventure over and over and over." Dariyl and Minerva exchanged glances. Darryl said, "What do we do, then? I want to go home." Minerva sat and stared off into the distance. "We can't change the past." She looked up at him and grinned sud- denly. "But we ought to be able to play merry hell with the present." Page 208 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html The whole family sat on the grassy hill in Eyrith, getting realty to go home. Daddy wrote the story of the way it was going to be. Mommy painted the pictures. "I think you ought to magic us rich," Jamie said. Carol said, "Magic me as the most beautiful, smartest girl in the worid." Mommy sighed. "You are already smart, and already beautiful. And, Carol if we make you different, how will your grandma and grandpa know you?" "Could you at least magic me better grades in Language Arts?" Jamie asked. "We'll see." Barney knew what that meant. It meant "No but I don't want to argue anymore." He grinned. Jamie was such a butthead sometimes. "What about you?" Mommy and Daddy asked him. "Do you have any special requests?" Bamey could think of a million neat things that he could have asked for but he couldn't think of one that was important. "No," he said- "I just want to go home." And anyway, he thought, even if Birkwelch says magic doesn't work the same back home... Ibetl can still do some stuff. He intended to try. Minerva pushed the doorbell and listened to the famihar ring. She heard footsteps clicking on the flagstones in the enhyway. Her mother opened the door. "Mom " Minerva managed to say before her mother screamed. It was quite a scream. To her credit, Mrs. Wilson didn't faint. She leaned against MINERVA WAKES 271 the doorway, breathing heavuy, and she did turn whiter than the paint on the doorframe but she didn't faint "You're dead," she said. "No, Mom, I'm not. Darryl isn't, the kids aren't. Every- body's fine." "You aren't going to believe this," she told her mother, and even as she said it, she knew they would bebeve. Danyt had written it that way. "We were kidnapped by... um ..." She winced, and gave her mother what she hoped was a sheepish grin,"... by space aliens." She took a deep breath. "The FBI and the CIA are doing everything they can to cover it up." They were, too, she thought. She and Danyl had stuck an alien theme a mile wide into their story. The whole thing was going to wreak havoc with the US defense budget for the next few years. She hated that. but. . . Her mother hugged her, and cried, and dragged her into the house, and laughed, Page 209 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html and screamed some more, and called her brother and her father and all the neighbors [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |