Andre Norton - WW - 26 The Mage Stone

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Books by Andre Norton
About the Authors
Witch World
--26 The Mage Stone (1996)
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
AFTERWARD
About the Authors
FOR OVER FIFTY years,Andre Norton , "one of the most distinguished living SF and fantasy writers"
(Booklist) , has been penning best-selling novels that have earned her a unique place in the hearts and
minds of readers. She has been honored with a Life Achievement Award by the World Fantasy
Convention, and her numerous science-fiction and fantasy novels have garnered her millions of devoted
readers across the globe. Works set in her fabled Witch World, as well as others, such asThe
Elvenbane (with Mercedes Lackey) andBlack Trillium (with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Julian May),
have made her "one of the most popular authors of our time"(Publishers Weekly) . She lives in Winter
Park, Florida.
Mercedes Lackeyhas enjoyed best-selling success with her many fantasy works, including her
much-acclaimed adventures set in the fabled world of Valdemar. While much of her work lies in epic
fantasy, she has enjoyed successful forays into dark fantasy, with her Diana Tregarde books, and
contemporary fantasy, which includes her recently publishedSacred Ground . She is one of the most
popular fantasy authors on the scene today. She lives with her husband, artist and author Larry Dixon, in
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Witch World
--26 The Mage Stone (1996)--
To the loving memory of my mother, Deane R. Schaub,
who encouraged the writing, listened to each chapter as it emerged, and sometimes said,
”That middle part could be somewhat clearer.”
—Mary H. Schaub
CHAPTER 1
Mereth of Ferndale–her private journal during the voyage to Estcarp (Dales calendar: Month of the Fire
Thorn, Year of the Horned Hunter)
M y valiant Doubt—if you could see me writing this journal, you would smile. No, not merely smile; I am
certain that you would laugh to behold this aged Daleswoman wedged below decks at the height of a
winter storm, striving to impose some order upon what the Sulcar fondly term their cargo accounts.
I should have been reduced to fingering my tally sticks in the dark had I not recalled the clever bracket
you crafted to steady a lamp no matter how violent the motion of a ship. Persuaded of its virtue by my
sketches, Captain Halbec ordered his carpenter to construct several brackets for our cabins. Expecting
the winter drafts that surge through every passageway, he had prudently stocked ample numbers of
horn-shielded lamps.
While my lamp light is thus fairly assured, my perch on this writing bench is erratically precarious. I must
wield my quill most deliberately to avoid frantic blots and smears. I vow the effort is more frustrating than
writing on horseback; at least while riding, I was always able to curb my horse. Would that this heaving
ship were governable by bit and bridle! The Dames who taught me in childhood would be sorely
disappointed by the appearance of this page. It is fortunate that the secret trade script you and I devised
so long ago requires no fine sweeps or flourishes. If I am jarred much more often, not even I shall be able
to make sense of these marks.
Oh, Doubt, Imiss you. I cannot number the times I have thought and written those words these twenty
years past. With every new dawning, I long for the sound of your voice, the touch of your sleeve against
mine at the work table, the glint of sunlight on your hair.
The way of life we once shared together has been ripped away. What now prevails is beyond any of my
earlier imaginings. So much has changed . . . but not the ache of parting from you. That pain gnaws as if it
were only hours ago, not years, that you kissed my hand in farewell. Just as my Clan duty forced me to
preserve what I could of our family trading business, so yours drew you to defend your home Dale
against Alizon’s ravening Hounds. Unlike all of our previous partings, from that final one there was to be
no joyful return.
When that unspeakable year broke upon us, we might as well have been stricken by the very scourge of
its Year Name: the Fire Troll. Our Dales were seared in spirit as well as flesh when the invading Hounds
boiled ashore. I heard accounts of the metal-sheathed man-carriers supplied by their Kolder allies,
creeping monsters that spouted liquid fire and battered through gates and walls along our coast. I thank
the Amber Lady that your death was clean, by swordblade. Even now, when my dreams are troubled by
fragments of remembered battles, I burn with regret that I was not at your side, to live or die together
with you.
But I was away, traveling far inland when Vennesport was attacked and our trading storehouses were
plundered. Those were times of waking nightmares. As I fled toward the western mountains, a fellow
refugee passed me word of your fate. I think if I had been alone, I would have turned back then, to seek
my death in the fighting—but I could not ignore my Robnore clan obligations. Uncle Parand was among
those killed in the sacking of Vennesport. All of Mother’s remaining brothers and most of our coastal
trading colleagues were suddenly gone. The surviving remnants of the Clan turned to me for leadership.
Grieving and distressed, I felt they were making a hopeless choice, but I could not deny their pleas for
direction.
For weeks of torment that stretched into months, I scarcely ate or slept or paused to think. Always,
always I longed for you. I stumbled onward, forcing myself to envisage what you would have done to
meet each new crisis. Memories of you served as my anchor; without them, I would have been
overwhelmed by despair.
Constantly, I reminded myself that we had been separated more often than we had been together. You
said once that our letters linking us while apart could comprise an ample chronicle—except no scribe
could read our secret script. Despite the turmoil of the war and my travels since, I have preserved some
few of your letters, together with the little sketch of you that Halbec made during your long-ago trading
voyage aboard his ship. These documents are my most treasured possessions—your lasting legacy to
me.
Another very different legacy has driven me to endure this unseasonable voyage. I suspect that you
would shake your head ruefully at the surface appearance of my recent behavior. You would ask how,
after more than sixty years as a trader, I could turn my back on all that I knew to pursue the flimsiest of
hopes? I can hear you say it—chasing moonbeams or catching snowflakes would be more profitable than
this journey promises to be. Yet if only I could lay my reasoning before you—of all the people I have
ever known, you would be the most likely to understand why I must dare this quest. I believe you would
urge me to seize this chance, however slight or foolish it seems.
Dear Doubt . . . you were always an eminently cautious, deliberate man. Uncle Parand once said you
were the most prudent risk-taker he knew, for you constantly weighed every possible gain against any
potential loss before you committed yourself. No matter what later obstacles arose, you would press on
until you accomplished your task.
I had observed a similar strain of persistence in my mother. It was her force of will that converted
Father’s improved breed of sheep into the foundation of our trading success. I have been told that I am
as obstinate as she was, so the three of us shared the trait, for I recall times when each of us accused the
others of excessive willfulness.
Habits honed in one’s work, especially when rewarded, often spill over into other aspects of life. I think
of the hours you and I spent together compiling kinship lists. How excited you were to discover that one
of your forebears claimed blood-ties to our Robnore Clan. You rode leagues to search for verifying
documents, and brought half the dust from an abbey’s archives back with you. We pored over lists for so
many families. I shall never forget those parchments stored in the wax-lined sea chest from Wark. You
said there could be no doubt of that clan’s devotion to their trade, since every bundle of records for
generations reeked of fish!
Here am I, all these years later, still asking questions about kinship. But these particular questions do not
concern missing names from the kin lists of other folk; these questions concern my own kin, and the
farther I pursue them, the more my disquiet grows. I cannot rest until I find answers. For years, I did not
know where to search. I had only guesses, suspicions, fragments that made scant sense by themselves. It
was as if I sought to plan a trading journey without knowing where I was to ride, or what goods I should
take.
Then, nearly two months ago, in the Month of the Shredbark Tree, Dame Gwersa’s letter reached me at
Vennesport. I am certain she did not intend it so, but her news was the firebrand that ignited my
accumulated store of worries. From your visits to Rishdale Abbey, you would recall the Dame’s special
devotion to the preservation of old records. Since the war, she has endeavored to restore the archives at
her own abbey as well as several others tragically damaged in the fighting. Dame Gwersa is now very old
and blind, but she dictates occasional letters to me, her student from almost seventy years ago.
A visitor to Rishdale Abbey this past summer had brought her word of an amazing discovery across the
sea in Estcarp. Two years before, in the Year of the Kobold, an unprecedented quaking of the earth was
wrought by Estcarp’s Witches to halt an invasion across their southern border from Karsten. One of the
subsidiary results was the destruction of parts of the walls and towers at Lormt, the ancient citadel famed
for its archives. Previously unknown storage rooms and cellars were exposed beneath the rubble, adding
an untold wealth of documents to those already prized by kinship scholars.
The moment I read Dame Gwersa’s account, I knew that I must journey to Lormt. Until then, I had felt
like a jeweler attempting to assemble a chaplet of Ithdale pearls, but lacking most of the significant gems
needed to complete my pattern. My missing pearls were of two sorts: kin-facts, and knowledge about a
very different kind of jewel. What better place could I seek both than Lormt?
Two primary questions had been—and still are—hammering in my mind: who was my true father, and
whence came my mother’s chief legacy to me, that curious jewel she termed my betrothal gift?
From childhood, I had always assumed that I knew who I was. On the day I first met you, I identified
myself on my writing slate—Mereth of far Ferndale, speechless since my birth in the Year of the
Blue-homed Ram. You said that was an appropriate Year Name for one engaged in the wool trade, and
a script as clear as mine should be as useful to a trader as a voice, yet far less likely to be misunderstood.
I was seventeen then, and grateful for your kindness. Not many busy traders would pause to read my
slate, or have the time or patience to answer my questions.
From that initial meeting, you were distinctively different from all the other traders, and not just because
of your singular courtesy. I was bemused when you confided that you had two names: Lundor, given you
by your parents, and Doubt, bestowed on you by the trading community. I recall thinking what a strange
name Doubt was, so I wrote on my slate, “Why ‘Doubt’?”
You smiled, and replied that it was due to your deplorable habit of foreseeing all the possible objections
to proposals—all the reasons why suggested plans might not work.
That night, I wrote queries to Mother about you. She laughed aloud, and said you also peppered your
speech with frequent doubts. Assuming a severe expression, she imitated your deep voice, “Oh, I doubt
we shall acquire any usable wool from that Dale this season—excessive rains spoiled their grazing land.
Besides, I doubt they’ve yet repaired the only bridge allowing access by our wagons. This venture you
propose will go ill, I’ve no doubt.” For all your gloom, she added, you were a very keen trader, and the
Clan was fortunate to secure your service.
By the time two years later when Mother’s own trading wagon was swept away in the mountain
landslide, my acquaintance with you had expanded from chance encounters to joint ventures. When I
discovered that you shared my interest in kinship tracing, it was a pleasure to pass on to you some of the
requests for kin lists from the merchants and landholders we met in the course of our regular trading
work. Soon we were helping each other trace our own family histories. Your folk had clustered for
generations in the coastal Dales near Seakeep, while Mother’s Robnore Clan had traveled from town to
market to trading fair.
Mother first met Father at Twyford, whence both were drawn by the great annual wool fair. From her
few remarks years later, I judged that she had been immediately impressed by his knowledge of the finest
wool bearers. He confided to her his desire to locate the fabled blue-horned sheep of the western crags,
for he was convinced that he could use them to improve the quality of the Dales’ wool. Knowing Mother,
I expect she gave deep thought to his likelihood for success before she consented to wed him and
accompany him on his search inland well past Uppdale and Paltendale.
Mother said to me once, with a fond but exasperated sigh, “Your father was a good man, but too
enwrapped by his dreams of breeding the perfect sheep. To be fair to him, I must say I never met his
equal for tracking and caring for sheep. Still, he needed to attend more to the trading side of the matter.
Not my Dwyn—always off over the next ridge to snare yet one more wildling to add to his flock. Would
that he had possessed more of the trading blood of his forebear Rodwyn of Ekkor! Yet each man must
weigh what wool he can shear, and tally his own accounts.”
Father (as I then believed him to be) was a third son and distant lord-kin to the House of Ekkor. I
remember him only dimly, since I was scarcely four when he set out during a storm to search for a lamb
and never returned.
After his death, Mother placed me with the Dames of Rishdale Abbey to see if they might cure my
muteness. They could not, but Dame Gwersa taught me diligently for six years. Mother came for me
when I was twelve. Although the Dames offered to accept me for training as a religious scribe, Mother
said that my writing skill would be of more use to her in trade. When the Dames objected that my
muteness would be a disadvantage beyond the shelter of their cloisters, Mother asserted that on the
contrary, it would be a positive trading advantage, since I could neither tattle secrets nor offend
customers with unwise chatter.
I soon found that in Mother’s trading business, I had a talent for handling accounts, determining values,
and locating goods. A far rarer talent—uncommon among Dalesfolk—was my ability to find lost articles,
especially if I could touch some other object belonging to the owner.
In those days, too, I experienced occasional vivid dreams. All I could recall upon waking were flashes of
bright colors and snatches of strange music. When I was about fifteen, I wrote haltingly about my dreams
one day when I was alone with Mother. She was always occupied; her hands were never idle longer than
it took for her to snatch up a new hank of wool or the next bundle of tally sticks. That day, when she
read my slate, she actually dropped her knitting in her lap and sat rigidly still. I vow her face paled
beneath its ruddy sun-warmed hue.
In a manner quite unlike her usually brisk speech, she said slowly, “I once had peculiar dreams for a time
. . . before you were born. After your birth, they stopped. I had not thought of them for years.” She
shook her head, and resumed her knitting. “Such things are mere night vapors, banished by the light of
day. Put them from your mind.”
It wasn’t long after that incident that Mother first mentioned my betrothal gift. I had found for her a
missing bracelet, one of a pair she prized, for she loved fine jewelry. In her pleasure at the recovery, she
told me that there was one very special piece—a gift—put away for my betrothal.
Excited, I wrote on my slate, “Whose gift? See it now?” but she only paused at the door on her way out.
“No,” she said firmly, “you may not see it until you are promised to be wed. It is an old and valuable gift
from a . . . secret source that I cannot name.” I was disappointed at the time, but in the subsequent press
of work, I gradually forgot about the gift until the accident in the mountains reft Mother from me.
You were assisting Uncle Herwik then at our base in Ulmsport, while I was in Vennesport, a week’s
travel to the south. Mother had argued for a second trading base there, and had only just shifted her chief
residence to the port—if she could be persuaded to halt in any one place long enough to be said to reside
there. I was almost twenty when she died. You and Uncle Herwik’s party had been delayed by storms,
so I employed the time of waiting by sorting through Mother’s possessions, setting aside those items she
would have wanted to be given to various relatives and friends.
In the course of my sorting, I chanced upon a parcel tightly wrapped in dark blue leather. The instant I
touched it, Iknew that my betrothal gift lay within. It had never been listed among the family treasures,
and no other person in the family had ever mentioned it. I assumed that Mother must have acquired it in
her trading, instead of inheriting it.
Curious to view Mother’s secret gift, I pried loose the lacings and uncovered a pendant jewel set in
silver. The stone was an unusual blue-gray color, the size of a hen’s small egg, cunningly polished to
sparkle and flash as the light fell upon it. When I reached to pluck it out of its soft leather nest, my fingers
were jolted as if I had plunged them into snow melt. Had I possessed a voice, I am sure I would have
cried out. As it was, I snatched back my hand without picking up the stone. After a breathless moment, I
folded the leather around the necklace and retied the lacings.
On previous occasions, I had welcomed opportunities to handle fine brooches or belt buckles because I
could somehow sense, often in later dreams, images associated with the objects’ former owners. On this
day, however, I wanted no more contact with Mother’s pendant. I remember thinking that if I should
hold the jewel in my hand, I would be unbearably reminded of our separation. I did not want to be any
more forcefully linked to nightly visions of her than I already was in unguarded waking moments. In haste,
I packed the leather roll away with other precious items to be stored in our protected treasure room, and
fled outside as if pursued by demons.
I never had the opportunity to show you that jewel. You were busily traveling between Ulmsport and
Vennesport, and I was frequently away from our main Vennesport storehouse. It never occurred to me
to retrieve that particular locked casket until nearly twenty years later when you raised the subject of
marriage. You were so deferential, so shy about asserting yourself, that I wonder you managed to utter
the word “wedding.” Had we been left in peace, I would surely and gladly have shown you the pendant.
Any bride would have been proud to bring such a jewel to her lord-to-be. Yet those days were fated to
be far from peaceful.
You had been concerned for some time by rumors of trouble stirring across the sea, and tried to
convince Mother’s brothers that our trade links were being affected. You expressed alarm when
strangers from far Alizon arrived at several Dales’ ports in the guise of traders, skulking about, asking too
many questions. I listened to you, and shared your disquiet. I wrote Uncle Parand several times, warning
him of the danger, but in those days of willful blindness, seemingly no words could be found to rouse the
Dales.
We suffered sorely from our lack of leadership—the separate Clan lords refused to recognize the threat
to all, and would not cooperate or plan together until it was too late. When Alizon’s invasion broke upon
us from the sea, just as you had warned it would, all that we had built in Vennesport was destroyed.
When next I saw our storehouse years later, only a burned-out shell remained. Thus Alizon robbed me of
both my betrothal and the gift that should have graced me as a bride. You had been killed, and the
jewel—there was no way to discover what fate had befallen it.
The more I thought about the jewel, the more convinced I became that it had to be an object of Power.
How else could I explain my immediate aversion to its touch? I thought at the time I was distressed
because of its association with Mother, but I was even then touching items she had used regularly—her
tally sticks, her hair brush, her favorite writing quills. My dreams were undisturbed by any painful
intrusions linked to those objects.
I knew little then about Power, except that Dalesfolk have always been deeply uneasy discussing it, and
even more averse to experiencing the use of it. Our Wise Women possess knowledge of the uses of
Power, but their own exercise of it is of the personal kind, tending ills or sensing would-be outcomes by
consulting their rune-boards. We prize our Wise Women’s herb lore and healing skills, but any Dalesman
recoils from the thought of the raw Power wielded by the Witches of Estcarp across the sea, or the
storied mages of ancient Arvon.
When Mother died, I still thought of myself as wholly of the Dales—although I had only to glance at my
image reflected from burnished metal or water to observe my marked outward variance from my fellow
Dalesmen, including my parents. Not for me their red-brown hair that bleached in the sun, or their green
or blue-green eyes. From my youth, my hair was dark gray-brown, like rare lamantine wood, you used
to say, and my eyes a very pale clear blue. My skin, too, was pale, and refused to darken during the hot
summer months. My appearance, as well as my muteness, set me apart as a child.
Some of the Rishdale Dames muttered about me until Dame Gwersa made plain that I was under her
special protection. Only once I heard a kitchen maid hiss at me, “Spawn of Arvon,” but I had no idea
what she meant. When I wrote the evident insult for Dame Gwersa, she pursed her lips and said that
some folk preferred to invent troubles when there were quite enough under foot to deal with day to day. I
subsequently searched the abbey archives for lore on Arvon, but could find few references to that
daunting land beyond the mountains bordering the northernmost Dales. Dame Gwersa would say only
that no Dalesmen traveled there because the Arvon folk were close-knit and preferred their own
company. She also conceded that there were Powers and Forces in Arvon that were best avoided by
prudent men. Many years later, I attempted to trace vague rumors of rare weddings between folk from
Arvon and the Dales. The suspected children of such unions were shunned in the Dales, as if they were
somehow different from us. I suspect I began then to wonder whether my own strangeness could be
ascribed to a blood-tie to Arvon. I had, after all, been born in a remote Dale near the borders of both
Arvon and the shunned Waste.
I made a list of my peculiarities: my muteness from birth, my un-Daleslike appearance, my strange
dreams (possibly similar to the odd dreams experienced by my mother), my ability to find lost objects. It
occurred to me that Mother’s betrothal gift might have originated in Arvon. I could no longer ignore the
inference that my real father might not have been Dwyn of the House of Ekkor.
One other piece of evidence had to be included in my list. When I was sixteen, Uncle Parand borrowed
me from Mother to accompany him on coastal trading voyages. He said I should be able to learn much,
while keeping his records for him. After those first short trips, he pronounced me useful and trustworthy
(and also happily not subject to illness due to the motion of our trading vessels). He then invited me on
the much longer voyage across the sea to the eastern lands, whose great ports I had only heard
about—Verlaine, Sulcarkeep, and Estcarp’s inland river port, Es City.
While I was walking alone near Es Castle, I encountered a solitary Witch of Estcarp. I was eighteen
then; Uncle Parand had warned me to defer to any lady of the Old Race garbed in the distinctive gray
robes of the Witches. I drew well to one side of the path to allow her ample room to pass by. She
seemed not to have noticed me at all initially, but as soon as she passed me, she stopped abruptly,
turned, and made a sign in the air with her right hand. To my amazement, the very lines her moving fingers
sketched flared with a blue light (I have since been told that this indicated I was not tainted by the Dark).
The Witch shook her head dismissively, and walked away without speaking a word to me. She therefore
failed to see the delayed secondary glowing of her sign in the air—first red, then orange, then
yellow—before it faded away entirely. I did not report this incident to my uncle, nor did I write any
account of it for anyone else until now, as I marshal my arguments to persuade . . . I suppose I seek to
persuade myself. My stalwart Doubt—if you were here, I believe you would accept my reasoning.
When I arrive at Lormt, I intend to request leave to search their archives for any records concerning
jewels of Power. Captain Halbec has described for me the appearance of the Witch Jewels of Estcarp;
they are cloudy, smooth-cut gems, not at all like my betrothal gift. Surely, however, Power can reside in
different kinds of stones. I shall also search for lore about Arvon and whether any other folk like me have
been described in kin lists.
If only the winds would rage this forcefully on a steady tack, we should complete our passage in far less
than a month. But I must strive to be patient, and hope that the vessel holds together amid the storm
waves. It will be good to see the sun again—and to be able to stand still, and get dry!
CHAPTER 2
Kasarian of Krevonel–his account of the Baronial Assembly, Alizon City (Alizonian calendar: 5th Day,
Moon of the Knife, the 1052nd Year Since the Betrayal)
I first saw the magic-cursed jewel when it was placed upon a silver chain around the neck of my sire’s
murderer. It was the fifth day of the Moon of the Knife, in the One Thousand Fifty-second Year Since
the Betrayal. All land barons of Alizon were required to attend the New Year’s Assembly for
Presentation to the Lord Baron of that year’s noble whelps come-of-age.
I was standing not two spear lengths from the throne when Lord Baron Norandor raised his sword to
amend the customary order of procedure. Except for his eyes, his face was concealed by the
white-furred Lord Hound’s mask. He was a thinner man than the previous Lord Baron Mallandor, his
dead littermate, so his voice echoed within the mask as he summoned Baron Gurborian to approach the
throne.
Any matter concerning the murderer of my sire demanded my most wary attention. Gurborian’s schemes
had for years permeated all of Alizon. Only the slowest-witted barons were unaware of his ambition to
seize the Lord Hound’s mask for himself. Four moons before, I had received a private letter from
Volorian, my sire’s elder littermate, complaining that Gurborian’s hirelings were prowling near our
northeasterly estates. Could yet more threats against our Line be straining at Gurborian’s leashes?
When Gurborian had knelt before the throne, Norandor arose, sheathing his sword. “Worthy Gurborian
of the Line Sired by Reptur,” the Lord Baron proclaimed, “my unfortunate littermate esteemed your
counsel, as do I. For your able warfare in the Dales across the sea, as well as for other valued services,
he allowed you to bear this singular token of Alizon’s approval.”
The torchlight in the Great Hall seemed to ignite a coal of blue fire in the Lord Baron’s outstretched
hand. I edged forward to secure a better view. The light glittered from a jewel the size of a moor hen’s
egg, and flared between Norandor’s fingers as he stooped to attach the stone to Gurborian’s baronial
neck chain. “Now I, Norandor, Lord Baron of Alizon,” he continued, “reaffirm that approval by
conferring upon you his notable prize, to be borne by you during your lifetime.”
A muffled snort erupted from the elderly baron standing next to me. “As soon as Gurborian’s dead,” he
muttered, “Reptur’s pack had best hasten to return that bauble before the Lord Baron’s guard break in
to claim it.”
I was the only one near enough to hear the remark, but I gave no sign that I had. I was fairly certain that
old Baron Moragian was not a member of Gurborian’s current faction, but it was unwise to acknowledge
such a comment where an unfriendly witness might notice. My outward detachment, I must admit, was
also partly due to my attention’s being so closely focused on the jewel; never before had I seen such a
stone. It continued to draw my eye even after Gurborian rejoined his coterie.
Our Line had no whelps to be presented that year. When Sherek, the new Master of Hounds, called for
our pack’s representative, I strode forward to kneel before the throne. “In the stead of Baron Volorian,”
I asserted, “I, Kasarian, appear for the Line Sired by Krevonel.” Norandor acknowledged me with a
wave of his hand, and I withdrew to one side.
The Great Hall’s air seemed suddenly stifling, the torches far too bright. Within my head, the nagging
pain that for some nights had frustrated my efforts to sleep redoubled its thumping. Desiring a temporary
refuge away from the noisy throng, I slipped out into the corridor leading to the oldest part of Alizon
Castle.
I knew of one particular room where I was unlikely to be disturbed. The ancient mosaic designs on its
walls and floor were similar to those in one room in my own castle here in the City. I plucked a torch
from a hall sconce to carry with me, but torches within the mosaic room had already been kindled by the
servants.
Behind the pierced stone screen along one side of the chamber was a long bench probably used by
serving slaves in times past when the room was more frequented. Due to winter drafts, a large tapestry
had been hung across the room side of the screen, but it was threadbare in spots. If a person behind the
screen chose his vantage point with care, he could see quite well into the main chamber. I had not
intended to spy unseen, but I had only just sat down on the bench when I heard the scrape of boots
entering the main room.
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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：123 页 大小：378.9KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-24

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