by Ian Irvine
There was a huge bloodstain on the floor where the dead guard had lain, and drag marks away from it. Over against the wall, where she had left Karan wrapped in the bloody cloak, she found a tiny smear of blood. Near the far wall was Nelissa’s stick, broken in two. Tallia ran outside, back to the pyre, calling out to the butcher with the gray hair.
“What of the dead in the hall? Are they burnt?”
The man thought for a moment, scratching the end of his nose with a bloody fingernail. Tallia found the mannerism particularly offensive.
“There were five, perhaps six, that we took from there,” he said, frowning. “I can’t remember now; so many dead! We did that place hours ago. I remember the old one—we knew her, of course, even if she hadn’t been in robes. Nelissa the Sour! Who will mourn her, I wonder?”
“Was there a young woman with red hair?”
“Can’t remember, lar. There were several women, that I know, and one very striking, but after a while you don’t look too closely at them, except to be sure that they’re dead. No matter how beautiful they are, once they’re gone, their dreams are finished. No use having your own over them.” It seemed he needed to talk about his experiences. “Remarkable the gap between life and death—at first you can hardly tell it, but as the day wears—”
Tallia was not interested in his philosophy. “Are you sure you haven’t burnt her? She was little, about so tall; red hair, pale skin, blood all over her shirt, but not her own. You would have noticed her hair, a fiery red. She was still alive last night.”
“Then you should have taken her last night,” he said, scratching his nose again. “That was a bitter night to be dying alone. The women we burned from there had no blood on them, as far as I remember, nor the men either, save one. One woman was tall and dark, not unlike you. I don’t remember the other. But we didn’t burn any live ones. There were only two breathing this morning, both men, and we sent them away to be nursed. That’s all I know.”
The others must have recovered or been taken prisoner in the night, thought Tallia. If only I had carried her with me. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Pawns of the New Clysm
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgements
Maps
Part One
1 The Tale of the Forbidding
2 Decline of a Chronicler
3 Haunted by the Past
4 An Ominous Revelation
5 The Face in the Mirror
6 Fall of a Chronicler
7 The Sewers of Fiz Gorgo
8 The Watcher in the Forest
9 Lost in the Swamp
10 The Gate of Hetchet
11 A Second Chance
12 The Inn at Tullin
13 The Road to the Ruins
Part Two
14 The Cells of Fiz Gorgo
15 Not What He Had Expected
16 Fear of Heights
17 A Companion on the Road
18 Mountain Sickness
19 Confessions
20 The Tale of Tar Gaarn
21 Old Friends Fall Out
22 Shazmak
23 Tales of the Aachim
24 No Way Out
25 Inhuman Bondage
26 The Trial
27 Flight
28 In the Caverns of Bannador
29 In The Hills of Bannador
Part Three
30 The Link
31 Faelamor’s Story
32 The Triumph of the Whelm
33 Maigraith’s Story
34 Fire in the Night
35 The Siege of Sith
36 Refugees
37 The Old City
38 A Visit From the Magister
39 The Prisoner
40 The Great Conclave
Glossary
Guide to Pronunciation
Meet the Author
Also by Ian Irvine
Bonus Material
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 1998 by Ian Irvine
Excerpt from The Tower on the Rift copyright © 1998 by Ian Irvine
All rights reserved. In accordance with the US Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Published by Warner Aspect
First Orbit eBook edition: August 2013
ISBN 978-0-446-56759-6
