Harshini
Page 50
R’shiel didn’t move.
The itching spread up his left arm. He scratched at it with his right hand and discovered his arm covered in small hard lumps. He tore his eyes from R’shiel and glanced down. The lumps were growing larger. As he watched, one of the lumps on his forearm began to develop a puss-filled head. The itching progressed beyond annoying into true pain. The lumps were spreading. He could feel them forming on his back and across his belly. His trousers chaffed as the sores began to form in his groin. His face was swelling with them, too. He tore at his clothing as another sore erupted, the burning itching growing more and more relentless; his breath came in gasps as he realised what was happening to him. The sores kept spreading.
“No!” he panted, as he tore at his own flesh in a futile attempt to relieve the burning. “No! No!…Noooo!”
R’shiel stood there watching him.
“What have you done to me?” he wailed. “Make it stop! Don’t do this to me! Not this! Kill me if you must, R’shiel, but not like this! Let me die like a man!”
That evoked a reaction from her. She laughed.
“Like a man, Loclon?”
“Stop it, R’shiel! Please. I beg you!”
“It takes years to die from Malik’s Curse, did you know that?” she asked in a conversational tone. “Of course, a few years being slowly devoured by your own body doesn’t seem sufficient to repay all you’ve done, but it will have to do, I suppose.”
“I’ll…kill myself before…I let this thing…eat me alive,” he gasped, unable to stop scratching at the spreading sores.
“No, Loclon, you won’t kill yourself. For one thing, you’re too big a coward, and for another, I won’t let you.”
“How are you…going to…stop me?”
“Magic.”
R’shiel turned and walked away, until eventually she was swallowed by the darkness. She didn’t look back.
I’ll kill myself, he decided silently. I won’t die this way. He staggered to his feet and turned towards the ocean. That’s all it will take. Just wade into the water and let the sea take me.
The salt water stung the sores on his legs as he splashed into the foam. He plunged into the sea until it was waist high, then suddenly found he could go no further. He wanted to live, he realised with despair. Even though he had consciously made the decision to die, there was another voice in his mind that wouldn’t let him. He found himself unable to take another step.
Loclon staggered back to the beach and threw himself down on the sand, rubbing against the grains to ease the itching, but the sand merely aggravated his already inflamed skin. He was sobbing with frustration. He couldn’t relieve the itching. He couldn’t stop the pain. He couldn’t even die…
A hand reached for him and hope flared bright for a fleeting moment! He knew she couldn’t walk away from him! She had to come back! This was just a game, she was just tormenting him for revenge…
“Mister?” the voice said gently. “It’s all right, Mister. The itching goes away after a few days…”
He looked up to find the girl from the settlement with her pathetic smile and her ruined face staring down at him, her eyes filled with pity.
Loclon’s howl of despair echoed across the empty beach.
Then he forced himself up and looked around urgently, but it was as if R’shiel had never even been here. There was no sign of her.
Not even footprints in the sand.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, I have quite a few people I’d like to thank for their help and support. Lyn Tranter from Australian Literary Management, Stephanie and everyone at HarperCollins Publishers Australia, Sarah Endacott from Edit or Die for editing and advice and patience.
I would also like to thank Debra Rae-Smith and Fiona McLennan, the whiz-kids of cyberspace at HarperCollins and Voyager Online, who have given me a great deal of support, and quite a few emailed suggestions, particularly in relation to Tarja’s fate, all of which I happily ignored…
I must again thank the awesomely talented Stephanie Pui-Mun Law for her wonderful covers, and the remarkable character sketches that she has provided for this series.
A special thank you, too, must go to Elle, Stephanie, Woody, Alison and Ryan, the gang from Whitley College, for their input, their friendship and their all-night proofreading session.
To my children, Amanda, Tracey (TJ) and David, my thanks for their support, their faith, the inspiration they have provided, and for making me feel that I haven’t completely failed as a mother.
And finally, to my good friend Harshini Bhoola: it’s been a long time coming, but this one’s for you.
About the Author
Jennifer Fallon lives in Alice Springs, in Central Australia and writes anywhere she can get her hands on a computer. She writes full time and moonlights in business training and IT as a consultant.
To find out more about Jennifer Fallon, her books and her writing, visit her web site:
www.jenniferfallon.com
For all the latest science fiction news, visit ‘Voyager Online’—the website for lovers of science fiction and fantasy:
www.voyageronline.com.au
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Books by Jennifer Fallon
DEMON CHILD TRILOGY
Medalon (Book One)
Treason Keep (Book Two)
Harshini (Book Three)
SECOND SONS TRILOGY
The Lion of Senet (Book One)
Eye of the Labyrinth (Book Two)
Lord of the Shadows (Book Three)
THE HYTHRUN CHRONICLES
Wolfblade (Book One)
Warrior (Book Two)
Warlord (Book Three)
Copyright
Voyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, Australia
First published in Australia in 2001
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
www.harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Jennifer Fallon 2001
The right of Jennifer Fallon to be identified as the authorof this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright.
Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Fallon, Jennifer.
Harshini : the demon child trilogy : book three.
ISBN 978 0 7322 6613 4 (pbk.).
ISBN 978 0 7304 0121 6 (ePub).
1. Fantastic fiction.
I. Title. (Series : The demon child ; 3).
A823.3
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