It hit Kularro, then, just how desperate things had become. The Church of the Overarch clutched its information closely, rarely divulging anything of importance to anyone outside its highest ranks. Few things changed in the Fourth World, but nothing changed less than the Church.
Yet here they were, handing out secrets like midday snacks.
To novices.
It was then that he noticed a stack of books, some bound in leather, others in cloth, all of them in various stages of decay. They had been sitting next to the podium, these secrets that armies of previous epochs would have killed and died for, in the open and unattended. And he hadn't even noticed them. They had been hiding in plain sight.
Kularro had heard of towns and cities slaughtered to a man by the Returner's army, of monsters more unholy than any Aberration ripping men's souls from their bodies and dragging them down to the Third World in complete defiance of Berahmain's plans. But nothing he had heard or even imagined shook him as much as this. Before, he had idly wondered when the Citadel's walls would come tumbling down; he would have expected that to happen long before this.
The corners of Ruethan's mouth yanked up in a harsh smile. "Any questions? No?" He reached down to pluck the book at the top of the stack and opened it on the podium. "Then let us begin."
Fixing his eyes on the words before him, Ruethan read aloud.
The rest of The Clans: Tales from the Fourth World will be available soon, followed by the first novel of the Fourth World, The Born Sword.
Thanks for reading!
Dark Tree: A Tale of the Fourth World Page 6
