"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

Barzula and Mot glanced at each other, then back to StarLaughter, and then they smiled
slowly.
You did not provide me with life!
The thought boomed about the mausoleum, and although no spoken word sounded, all heard
Qeteb's words.
"You are my son!" StarLaughter screamed, unthinking anger giving her voice unusual strength. "I
provided you with life, I bore you through adversity, I gave birth to you while I drifted among the stars. I
loved and nurtured you through three thousand —"
"You provided the scrap of flesh which I chose to inhabit!" Qeteb stepped forward, and
StarLaughter finally had the sense to retreat slightly. "My existence needs no 'mother'. You
were merely the cow that delivered the meat for my needs. You are the one who should be grateful ...
and yet you have the stupidity to demand it of me\ I do not know," he continued, growling now, and
stepping forward once more, "why you still live or why your mind is still your own."
StarLaughter paled, although her eyes remained bright with fury. "Because no-one else in this gloomy
tower knows their way around this land and its secrets like I do!" she said. "You deserve another
hundred thousand years trapped in some Enemy's gaol if now you destroy the one Tencendorian
remaining at your side, and with a reasonably intact mind!"
"You would be better crawling mad at my feet!"
"You wouldn't darel" StarLaughter countered, squaring her shoulders in defiance.
Qeteb stared at her, then raised a fist and struck StarLaughter across her face so hard he flung her
sprawling several paces away across the floor.
"Bitch-sow," he said, his voice tight with frustration. "One day I will dare, and I will leave just
enough of your mind intact to know exactly what I will do to you."
StarLaughter raised herself on an elbow and stared at him. Her left cheek was livid, blood running
freely down her chin and neck. "If there is one being in existence you should never alienate,"
she whispered, "it is your mother."
Qeteb took one heavy step towards her. He laughed, whispery and harsh. "When I inhabited this
flesh, StarLaughter, I also gained its memories. Do you want to know what I can remember of your son,
StarLaughter? Do you? I remember that he despised you —"
"No! My son adored —"
"— he regarded you with contempt, as he knew all the Icarii in Talon Spike felt nothing but
contempt towards you —"
 "No!"
"You silly, vacuous woman. You thought you were the most powerful Icarii in the land, didn't
you? You thought that all power could be yours, didn't you? And yet you were nothing but an
embarrassment to the Icarii nation, someone to be greeted with silent sneers at every entrance into a
room, and with laughter at your departure. The Icarii loathed you, your husband was revolted
by you, and your son could not wait to escape your body. He hated you, StarLaughter. He was
sickened by you, and he escaped into death rather than spend an eternity amid the stars with you."
StarLaughter remained silent, rigid with shock. She stared at Qeteb.
Qeteb laughed again. "Queen of Heaven?" he said. "Never!" Then he spat a glob of phlegm through
his metal visor into her face.
She gasped, recoiling.
"That was from your son, bitch, not from me."
And Qeteb turned and strode away.

StarLaughter lay on the cold, cold floor of the mausoleum.
Lies! Lies! He spoke lies! Her son had adored her, loved her.
From the moment he had come to awareness in her womb, her son had been the only one who
had understood her power, and who had understood that she was destined for greatness and was