Beguilers Read Online Free Page A

a dream but you know it is them all the same.
    There was no point in reaching out with my hands, I knew that. The beguiler was too far above me. But I reached out with my mind, pleading, grasping, imploring it to come down to me. I hadn’t known it before, but somehow I learned at that moment that being human was painful; a thing to be pitied.
    And was it scorn that I saw in its eyes as it turned in the air above me and soared away so effortlessly? Perhaps, perhaps not. But its action seemed to me to be scornful, to leave me there helplessly bound to the ground while it defied all the laws that the mountain imposed upon the rest of us.
    I lay still long after the beguiler had disappeared. And while I lay there a decision was made. I suppose that I have to say it was I who made the decision, although it seems strange when I recall how hard I tried to persuade myself to change it over the next month. I began to try and change it that very night, even as I got up and started to walk home. I told myself that I was crazy, that no one had ever succeeded in such an undertaking and no one ever would. I told myself that I was lucky to be alive and that if I carried on with this crazy plan I certainly wouldn’t be for very much longer. But it made no difference. My mind was made up.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I DIDN’T TELL TIGO about my Great Intention, but from the way he looked at me over the next weeks I’ve a fair suspicion that he guessed. I didn’t tell anyone else, either. One of the rules about Intentions is that they must never be revealed to anyone before they are made public. In the case of a Great Intention, you’re supposed to discuss all the alternatives with your parents or the elders, but there’s nothing anyone can do if you don’t. And once you have offered your Great Intention, there’s no going back. You can change your own mind if you think you could live with yourself, but no one else can change your mind for you and they won’t try. It’s your life; your decision.
    The other thing, though, and it was one of the things I kept telling myself when I was trying to change my mind, is that the announcement of the first Great Intention marks the end of your parents’ responsibility for you. All the villagers are totally dependent upon each other; the village wouldn’t survive if they weren’t. But from the time we are nine years old we are encouraged to know our own capabilities and to be as independent as possible. That’s one of the reasons for the Intention sessions every month. When children first go to them they make all kinds of crazy announcements. They think they can do anything and everything. But once they’ve had a few colossal failures they begin to get wise and lower their expectations of themselves. That way, by the time they come to offer their first Great Intention they’re supposed to have a pretty good idea of what they can or can’t do, which is why other people don’t interfere.
    Things go wrong, of course. Lenko’s friend Samsy announced that he was going to marry his sweetheart, Diamsa, without consulting her on the matter. All their parents were furious, and he’s still trying to persuade her that she wants him. It has become a bit of a village joke, like old Hemmy announcing every month that her Intention is to prepare for her death. Everyone knows that, sooner or later, Diamsa will marry Samsy. And sooner or later, of course, old Hemmy will die. Those failed Intentions aren’t the end of anyone’s world.
    But if things went wrong for me …I thought about it, night after night as I lay in bed. I don’t know why it was that I couldn’t change my mind. It might have been that the beguilers had put me under some kind of spell already. Or it might have been an inner stubbornness, a determination not to be like everyone else even if it meant walking myself into a mess that would last for the rest of my life. Or walking myself into a mess that would bring a short end to it.
    The way Tigo