by J. L. Doty
Special Smashwords Edition
Child of the Sword
Book 1 of The Gods Within
by
J. L. Doty
This is a work of fiction, and as such involves speculative content. Any resemblance to persons, places, things, names, characters and incidents are fictitious, and are the product of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, and events or incidents regarding them, are wholly coincidental.
CHILD OF THE SWORD, BOOK 1 OF THE GODS WITHIN
Special Smashwords Edition
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Copyright © 2012 J. L. Doty. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
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ISBN: 978-1-938135-88-0 (eBook)
Version 2012.08.27
Contents
Prologue: Thrice and Thrice of a Benesh’ere Blade
Chapter 1: The Thief
Chapter 2: In the Witches Den
Chapter 3: To Glimpse the Wizard
Chapter 4: To Glimpse the Man
Chapter 5: A Wizard’s Name
Chapter 6: The Man
Chapter 7: In the Company of Rogues
Chapter 8: Hero’s Walk
Chapter 9: The Swordmaster
Chapter 10: The Fool
Chapter 11: The Magic of Power
Chapter 12: The Magic of Kings
Chapter 13: The Magic of Shadow
Chapter 14: Sword Magic
Chapter 15: The Question of Honor
Chapter 16: The Magic of Dreams
Chapter 17: The Path of Power
Chapter 18: Shadow’s Walk
Chapter 19: The ShadowLord
Chapter 20: The Shadow of Death
Chapter 21: Twice the Fool
Chapter 22: The Assassin’s Bite
Chapter 23: War Magic
Chapter 24: Death Magic
Chapter 25: God Magic
Chapter 26: The Dreamer
Chapter 27: The Pride of Fools
Chapter 28: Dream Seeker
Chapter 29: The Song of the Betrayer
Chapter 30: Dream Magic
Epilogue: Dream’s End
Preview: The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within
Prologue: The Tenets of Steel
Chapter 1: The Steel Within
Other Books Available by JL Doty
About the Author
Child of the Sword
Book 1 of The Gods Within
When gods and wizards go to war . . . it’s best to just find a good shadow and hide.
Map: The Lesser Clans
For detailed maps, check out the author’s web site at www.jldoty.com.
Prologue: Thrice and Thrice of a Benesh’ere Blade
Forge the steel thrice in the fires of hell.
Quench the steel thrice in the waters of heaven.
Blood the steel thrice in the agonies of death.
For thrice and thrice must a blade be born.
Chapter 1: The Thief
Rat stepped out of his shadow and darted quickly into another, scurrying like the animal for which he was named, his one good eye ever on the purse he followed. It looked to be a full purse, bulging and jingling with coins, a fat purse, tied to an even fatter waist, and soon it would be his.
Rat was a thief, a small, decrepit, barely human, sometimes animal, stunted, ugly bundle of filthy rags; he stalked his prey every day in the morning light of the market square. He was small, perhaps six or seven years of age, perhaps more. Badly malnourished, almost everyone in the streets considered him a disgusting excuse for humankind, with festering sores visible wherever rents in his dress of rags exposed diseased skin. His vision was limited to his one good eye, but that eye never strayed from sight of the fat and bulging purse.
“Away with yee, scum,” one of the fruit vendors bellowed, emphasizing his dislike for Rat by throwing a spoiled apple with considerable force.
Rat sidestepped the throw easily, and in the same motion caught the apple, a not infrequent means of acquiring food without resorting to theft. Then he scurried between the market booths and disappeared into a nearby shadow.
He paused there, slurped on the pulpy flesh of the rotten apple, aware that today of all days he must move with great care. Unseasonably heavy rains the night before had turned the dirt streets into a quagmire. The vendors, fearing a disastrous loss of revenue on this, the first market day of spring, had grown nervous and edgy. Anything that might turn customers away—especially filthy, disgusting Rat—was to be feared, driven off with a vengeance. Rat understood these things.
He finished the apple, moldy core and all, then reached into his rags and retrieved a small, featureless object no larger than the tip of his littlest finger: gesh. He placed it on his tongue carefully and began chewing, a hard, woody substance that broke up slowly. As it mixed with saliva it formed a fibrous mass that was both bitter and sweet. He let some of the juice trickle down his throat, knowing that soon the gesh would make life just a little sweeter.
Rat loved gesh. It made the cold nights of winter warmer, and it softened the filthy straw of his bed. Gesh brought the only pleasure to his life; he had learned that gesh was good, and that the lack of it was bad, very bad.
Without warning a rock smashed painfully into his cheek, sent him sprawling into the mud. “It’s Rat,” a young boy screamed. “Get him.”
Rat jumped to his feet instantly, ran a jagged, zigzag pattern to the nearest shadow. He paused there, then instinctively changed shadows as another rock sailed his way. He skipped randomly from shadow to shadow, hoping to confuse any eye that might be tracking him, then froze suddenly into stillness and waited.
Ther
e were three of them, boys not much larger than he, searching the shadows for him, seeking a little sport. If there had been more of them he would have feared them, for when they banded together in large numbers it became difficult to elude them, and often he must hide in his lair until they lost interest. But this time there were too few of them, and they were looking in the wrong shadows. They had surprised him only because he was too absorbed in his pursuit of the fat purse. And too, the pleasure of the gesh tended to cloud his mind. Rat understood these things.
With his tormentors searching elsewhere it was safe to move on. He changed shadows again and moved away from them, seeking the fat purse. He had lost sight of it in the immediacy of escape, of survival, but he found it again after only a few seconds, for the fat belly beneath which it hung was easy to spot as it jiggled and swayed through the ever-thickening crowd. Rat eyed the purse hungrily and squatted in a shadow, chewing his gesh and biding his time.
“Not here, Rat,” another vendor snarled. “You’ll not be a scarin’ away me customers with yer stench.”
Rat changed shadows. The fat purse meandered toward the center of the market so Rat followed, skipping from shadow to shadow, hoping the thicker crowds near the center would confuse pursuit at the moment of truth.
The next shadow Rat stopped in was at the edge of Mathal’s fruit stand. She’d seen him approach, but turned her head and pretended not to notice. She frequently looked away like that, allowing him to steal a piece of fresh fruit, and in return he was never greedy, taking only one. Often, in the dark of night, he would leave her a gift in return: a pretty stone polished by the weather, a half-eaten mouse or rat, or perhaps a small pile of grubs. He knew she appreciated the gifts, for in the morning she always took them in without scorn or distaste.
Rat lost the fat purse momentarily, then caught sight of it again where it had stopped to watch a juggling act. The jugglers were good, and a dense crowd had gathered. Rat considered the situation carefully, decided that his moment had come.
He stayed close in among the stalls, picking his shadows with care, choosing each so that it brought him carefully closer to his intended prey. He was in his element, executing a skill he’d learned through a short lifetime of practice, dancing in a world of shadows that he loved dearly.
He paused in the last shadow to withdraw a wicked little knife from his rags, and with his confidence sustained by the gesh he made his move. He broke from his shadow, sprinted the short distance through daylight to the fat purse, gripped it deftly and sliced out with the knife. But the cut was not smooth. Fatpurse felt a slight tug as the blade bit into the purse strings, and as Rat turned to flee, purse in hand, he slipped in the mud, landed in a puddle with a splash.
“Stop,” Fatpurse screamed. “Thief.”
Rat jumped to his feet and ran.
“What?” someone shouted.
“That scum, there,” Fatpurse bellowed, pointing with a fat finger. “He stole my purse. A reward to the man that catches him.”
“It’s Rat,” someone screamed. “Get him.”
Rat had miscalculated. The mud was too thick and the crowd not enough so. Everyone could see him easily and many reached out for him as he shot past. A hand caught hold of his shoulder. He turned on it, bit it hard and it let go.
“Ahhh! I’ll get you, you little shit.”
With fear as his guide, dodging in and out of shadow, Rat barely made it out of the market square. But the crowd quickly coalesced into a mob to give chase, and leading it were the three boys who had hunted him earlier, as knowledgeable as he in the ways of the streets.
“Cut off the thief’s hand,” someone shouted.
Rat ran, heedless of direction, fear his only guide, the mob close on his heels. He ran without stealth or cunning, giving in wholly to the panic that consumed him. He made turns blindly and without thinking; down a street, up an alley, down another street, conscious only of the mud beneath his feet and the mob behind him. He turned into another alley, raced down its length, skidded madly through a hard turn to the right, and there found featureless stone walls on all sides, no windows, no doorways, a blind alley with no escape. He was trapped, and with that realization the fear overwhelmed him, forced him to his knees in the mud, where, without tears, without sound, unable to move, he collapsed in a heap.
The mob rounded the turn in the alley only an instant behind him, a wave of angry people that washed over him and past him, slamming hard into the wall that marked the limit of the alley. Those in the lead found themselves smashed senselessly between the hard stone ahead and their companions following close behind. Many were slow to rise.
“Where is he?” someone screamed.
Rat, still lying in the mud, was trampled some, but basically unhurt, while the mob stood all about him, surrounding him, milling about and paying him not the least bit of attention. Some scratched their heads in confusion and bewilderment, and looked directly at him as if he weren’t there, as if they looked right through him.
Fatpurse came lumbering up the alley, slow and ponderous. He stopped not two paces from Rat, put his fat hands on his hips and said, “Well. Where is he? Where is the little bastard? I can smell his stench, and he has my purse. Fifty coppers—No, a hundred coppers to whoever catches him.”
The mob went wild, overturning anything that might hide a small thief: garbage, refuse, litter that lined the edges of the alley. Rat stood in the center, unhidden and yet ignored by all. He looked at his hands and arms; they were still there, stained with dirt and grime. He looked at his legs and they too remained visible and unchanged. It was all very confusing, but Rat decided not to question his good fortune. This kind of thing had happened before, and if these maniacs wished to let him go when he was there for the taking, then so be it.
Most of the mob was searching the refuse that lined the edges of the alley, so Rat chose a path down the middle. He moved slowly, careful lest he tempt fate by bumping someone, and at first it was simple. But as he neared the end of the alley he noticed a tall man standing there unmoving, legs spread, his fists on his hips, elbows out. His clothes were of a cut far better than the norm: a hip length leather jerkin over a fine linen shirt, loose fitting breaches tucked into knee-high black boots, and for all intents and purposes he blocked Rat’s path.
“Well, well!” the man said, smiling appreciatively and looking directly at Rat. “That’s an impressive trick, young fellow.”
Rat edged experimentally to one side, hoping that, like the others, the man was looking through him and not at him. But the man’s eyes followed him unwaveringly, and Rat knew then that his end had come.
The mob had turned suddenly quiet. Fatpurse approached the tall stranger and bowed uneasily from the waist. “Lord Roland,” Fatpurse said reverently. “You do us honor.”
Lord! Rat thought. This stranger was a clan witch, a witchman come to carry Rat away to the hell pits of Kathbeyanne.
“What goes here?” the witchman demanded.
Fatpurse bowed again. “We seek a cutpurse, your lordship. A disgusting, filthy, little thing.”
The witchman took two steps and towered over Rat, who froze into stillness, his heart pounding uncontrollably. The witchman stuck out his hand, palm up. “Give me the purse, boy.”
Fear flooded through Rat’s soul, growing within him like a cancer, threatening to consume him. He could not move to hand the witchman the purse, though he lost control of his bladder and urine streamed down his leg.
“Stop that,” the witchman snarled.
Rat tried desperately to control his bladder.
“Stop that, I said,” the witchman shouted. He grimaced, put a hand to his temple. “Too much fear!” he groaned, and with his other hand he struck out. Rat didn’t see the blow coming, ended up sitting in the mud with a fiery red welt on his cheek and his head spinning madly.
“Stop that or I’ll slap you again even harder.”
Rat prayed to the gods to help him control his bladder.
�
�I see him,” someone shouted. “He was invisible.” The crowd came suddenly alive, turned again into a mob.
The witchman leaned over, retrieved the purse from the mud where it had fallen. He handed it to Fatpurse. “Here’s your purse, Raffin. Now clear this mob out of here.”
“But, my lord,” the fat merchant pleaded. “I have no control over these people.”
“Chop off the thief’s hand,” someone shouted.
“Take off his head,” someone else screamed.
The witchman calmly raised both hands above his head and cried, “Silence.”
All became still in an instant.
“There’ll be no chopping of hands or heads this day,” the witchman said. “At least not here and now. Now be gone. Clear this alley, or face my wrath.”
The mob obeyed without question. They shuffled out of the alley passively, subdued, grumbling some, but without a thought of defiance. They left behind Fatpurse, Rat, and the witchman, and their instantaneous compliance with the witchman’s orders bode ill for poor Rat.
“Lord Roland,” Fatpurse squealed, pointing at Rat. “Look. He’s disappearing again.”
The witchman’s head snapped around to look at Rat with those terrible eyes of his. “Just remember you this, boy. I can see you. I can always see you.”
He turned back to Fatpurse. “You’ve got your purse now, Raffin. Your presence is no longer required.”
“But Lord. What about punishment for the thief?”
The witchman smiled evilly. “I’ll see to that personally, Raffin. And you, thief,” he said, turning upon Rat. “You’re coming with me.”
