A Threat of Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

Alaric said, crushing the scroll in his hand. Keeper Gerone’s face grew white, and he stretched his hand toward the ruined red parchment.
    Alaric would not be swayed.
    He would not lose her.
    The Wellstone continued to pull him on. Alaric was at Sidion, reading dark, heartless books. Then he was standing over Evangeline, drawing the red light out from her, apologizing over and over while she screamed in pain. Finally, the ruby solidified, swirling with red light.
    Alaric let the memories flow, letting the Wellstone pull them out as quickly as it wanted. When Alaric reached the Death Caves of the southern blood doctors in Napon, the memories slowed. Alaric tried to push them faster, but the Stone recognized that here was a place no Keeper had ever been before. It spent too long absorbing the horrors of that place. Watching healthy people, even women and young children, poisoned. Their symptoms, responses to antidotes, and deaths recorded meticulously. There was so much blood and sickness in those caves you could taste it in the air.
    The Wellstone sifted through every memory as Alaric stood by, watching the doctors perform experiment after experiment with the rock snake venom he had brought. They didn’t have rock snakes this far south. He hadn’t known what they would do when he brought it to them. He hadn’t known how many people they would kill trying to develop an antidote. How many people Alaric would have to watch die, unable to stop them.
    And even the blood doctors found no antidote.
    The Wellstone’s pull on him lessened as the pool of unshared memories shrank. It settled finally on an image of the small keep where Evangeline lay, pale and still. Moonlight fell through the balcony doors onto her thin face, her limp hair. It glinted off the crystal surrounding her, keeping her body alive.
    With a moan, Alaric pulled his hands off the Wellstone.

Chapter 5
    Alaric leaned his head on the table and closed his eyes, clasping his hands together to stop their shaking. He wanted to run, to run and forget the fact that those memories were shared now, held permanently in the Wellstone to be studied by Keepers whenever they wished.
    Alaric shook out his hands. He shoved the thoughts of what he had just done away. It was done, and with it, his time as a Keeper. He would find Kordan’s antidote, and then he would leave. He thought of the swirl of darkness in the ruby and felt a wave of anguish. How long did he have before that darkness spread? How long did Evangeline have left?
    But the Wellstone demanded focus, and it was a long time before he was calm enough to try. Finally, he set his hands on it and concentrated on the entry he had read in Kordan’s journal. The boy, the snake, the emerald.
    It was a process, looking for information in the seemingly bottomless pool of memories in the Wellstone. Slowly, painstakingly, he nudged the chaos toward the memories Kordan had left. When he finally found them, he found the boy, writhing in pain while a green glow radiated from his body.
    The emerald formed, and the boy was led away by his parents. If Alaric could see where Kordan kept his notes, he could sift back through memories until he found the Keeper writing the antidote. But Kordan’s home was bare. There was only one book, the small brown journal Alaric had already read. Where did Kordan record his work?
    Kordan pulled the emerald out of his pocket, watching the light swirl. He picked up a box from the mantle, a sprawling oak tree carved into the lid. Gently, he wrapped the emerald in a red handkerchief and placed it in the box.
    Then he dropped into a chair. On the table next to him, sitting on a silver, three-pronged stand, was a small crystal with irregular surfaces, but each facet flashed with color.
    Kordan had a Wellstone.
    Alaric tried to see more, tried to draw out more memories from Kordan. But all he could see was Kordan looking into his own Wellstone.
    Alaric’s stomach dropped. Wellstones must not record