"Love does not make room for patience and caution. It burns wild for an instant and if not captured, it dies."
"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think that while dreaming all my dreams and planning all my plans, I didn't think of that? Of you? My life has been as lonely as yours. Knowledge is little comfort on a cold night. I have lived a life as solitary as your own, without wife or children. You see, Lyssa, though I encountered many women from many lands who came to learn from me, you and I were too much alike. None of them was"—his smile twisted—"suitable."
She turned away from him. "You were not as alone as you believe. You had a son."
Here was the thing he'd feared most, the thing he had not prepared for, could not prepare for. No wonder her greeting had been so much harsher than he'd anticipated.
"You said nothing. You told me nothing. You let me leave in ignorance."
"I would not use such a thing to place a hold on you, Ynyr. There is no place in true love for such manipulation. I was alone when you left. I was alone!" She gestured weakly toward the woven bed.
"I killed him."
"You killed our son?"
"I killed him at birth. I was angry, mad with anger at you and what you'd done to me. I could not strike at you, so I struck at him. With him went the last vestige of my hope and my humanity." She gestured at the silken prison that enclosed them. "I know you cannot forgive me.
"This small room is my life now, my life and my punishment, and the web-spinner is my jailer. I am left only with wisdom I cannot use. Men come in hopes of stealing it. They leave the mouth of the cave in terror. Those who try to enter never leave at all."
She bent over the table. For the first time in many years, she cried, though whether the tears were for herself, for her slain son, or for what might have been, Ynyr could not say.
He reached out to her, touched her gently.
"I cannot forgive myself. I have already forgiven you. I did what I felt had to be done. .. but if I'd known it would cause you this life of pain…"
"It matters not. You cannot forgive a woman who has killed your son."
There was a small mirror nearby. The effort cost Ynyr some of his remaining strength, but he could feel the surge of love rising from deep within, reaching out to her.
"If I had not already forgiven you, Lyssa, how could I see you now as you were then?"
She changed as he stared, the wrinkles fading, the old Lyssa brought back momentarily through the power of love.
She looked at the glass, wiping at her eyes, and marveled at the image of the exquisite woman that lived for an instant in the shifting silica.
"You allow me to see back through time through your eyes. I had almost forgotten. I was beautiful, wasn't I?"
"Beyond compare." He fought to keep his emotions in check while holding the projection. "How could I have left you! Perhaps I deceived myself, perhaps I was afraid." The effort was too much. The mirror image rippled, became a true reflection of the woman gazing into its depths.
She reached across the table and for the first time her tone was comforting. "Poor Ynyr. You have suffered too, haven't you? You told the truth in that."
"I always told you the truth, Lyssa."
"And I would not let myself believe that anything could be more important than our lives together. Blindness and ambition. Fate has not been kind to us." She nodded at the mirror. "Your vision was a gift to me. I know what it has cost you and I thank you for it. My memory weakens with age. I too had forgotten much."
"Your vision can be a gift to me, Lyssa. You are the finest seer Krull has ever produced."
"That is why so many continue to seek me despite the depradations of my guardian, and why they would make use of my talent against my wishes."
"It is that and more that I seek to prevent, for there is another of power who is to be used against her will."
From anger to sorrow the widow's emotions changed to curiosity. "What can I see for you, Ynyr?"
"I need to know where the Black Fortress will rise tomorrow."
"Useless, dangerous knowledge."
"I need to know."
For a terrible instant he thought her old anger would overcome her again, but her voice stayed calm, her expression benign. "No. Time enough to dwell on half-forgotten dreams. Perhaps it is time for all dreams and furies to end. You still hope to work something against the Beast?" He nodded and she shook her head sadly.
"Poor Ynyr. Always the hopeful dreamer."
"Then leave me this dream to follow to its end, Lyssa. Help me. Help me to help the girl. She has been carried off and awaits the attentions of the Beast. You know what that would mean. The location of the Black Fortress on the morrow?''
She sighed. "How well I remember that relentless sense of purpose. I was a weak diversion for you at best, Ynyr. You are a fanatic when it comes to the pursuit of knowledge. Perhaps your cause is worthy, but I doubt it.
"Still, I will tell you what you wish to know. Your Fortress will materialize in the Iron Desert. But the knowledge is useless to you and those who travel with you, for you cannot leave here to impart it to them. Many have come, a few have entered, but no man has escaped the web."
"Somehow I must do so. The young girl I refer to who is being held in the Fortress has your name. There is much else of you in her." He recited a genealogy he knew she could not ignore.
"You lie!" She rose from her chair and backed away from him, staring wide-eyed.
He walked slowly around the table and gently caressed a withered cheek. "Could I lie to you? I tell the truth now, as always. A young man seeks her. A young man the same age I was when you and I met. When you and I loved. He has much of me in him, though he knows not where it came from. In these two lovers all the planning comes to fruition, Lyssa. The Beast suspects and has drawn one of them into his lair. For there to be any chance of success in this matter her man must reach her before she is corrupted by the Beast. That is her last chance, and his—and Krulls. Help me, Lyssa. Help me to help them."
Still stunned by his words and what they implied she turned away from him. "Would that I might, but what you require is beyond my power."
Ynyr glanced at the hourglass. Of itself it was nothing: a transparent figure-eight filled with fine sand. What it stood for was everything.
Lyssa followed his gaze. "It may be turned only once. That is the law of the web." Her hand went to her forehead. "It would take a year before I could turn it safely again. I do not possess the resources to turn it twice in the same night."
"Then there is nothing more to be done, is there? The other Lyssa will suffer our fate. She will grow old alone, in a place of darkness. If she is that fortunate. I shudder at the Beast's ultimate intentions.
"Nor will she live alone in her suffering. This whole world will become a place of darkness, of figures scurrying about in holes in the rocks, like your many-legged jailer. It will not be a world of men but of frightened, furitive creatures unable to face the light of day. Krull will enter a long night of fear and savagery."
Lyssa let the resultant silence fill the silken chamber. Then she turned to pick up the hourglass.
"These are the sands of my life, not of Krull's. If you carry them with you, the spider will have no power to harm you, but your own life will run out with the sand, for I will have to draw upon it as well as my own."
"I promised my life to this cause. I have no fear of sacrificing it now. But what of your life? You've made no such promise."
She did not meet his eyes. "I am tired, Ynyr. Seeing you again has made me realize how tired I really am."
"I'm sorry. That was not my purpose in coming to you."
She smiled gently. "I know that. As for my life, such as remains of it, I give it freely to the girl who bears my name and perhaps a little more of me than that, if all that you tell me is truth."