Beyond the Burning Lands Read Online Free PDF Page A

talking,” I said. “And there is such a thing as aptitude. I do not think the High Seers ever fancied me as a recruit to the Order.”
    â€œThey cropped your head.”
    â€œThere was a reason for that.”
    I was on the point of saying that they had cropped their own as well before I remembered to guard my tongue. Edmund, flinging himself onto one of the chairs and sitting backward astride it, said:
    â€œBut what is it like there? Is it true that you get to the Sanctuary by climbing up a rainbow? And that you eat clouds and drink butterfly milk? What have you been doing all the time you have been away?”
    Martin said quickly: “He cannot tell us about it. It is forbidden for him to tell or for us to listen.”
    In this same place Edmund had asked Martin, newly made an Acolyte, about the secrets he had learned and I, on his behalf, had said much the same as he was saying now. I had not guessed what secrets there might be, nor how soon I would be made privy to them. I wondered how much Martin himself knew; even with him I dared not speak freely of what I had seen.
    I said: “It is all dull stuff, anyway. Tell me what has been happening here in Winchester since I’ve been gone.”
    They told me the news: how such a one had broken a leg in a fall out hunting, how another had perpetrated an elaborate jest against Blaine’s son Henry and got into trouble when Blaine himself was tricked by it, how one of the Dwarf Coiners of the Prince’s Mint had been found to have debased the gold but had fled before he could be punished. Who had been promoted, who fallen from favor. Who won the toboggan race which was held yearly in the High Street after the first snow. I listened with an interest whetted by the months of confinement to the duller conversation of the High Seers. Martin said:
    â€œBut the really interesting thing happened only two days ago, when the peddler came.”
    â€œThe peddler?” I asked.
    Edmund said: “He has goods to sell, but you could as well call him liar as peddler. He says he has come across the Burning Lands, from some city far to the north.”
    I nodded. “I have heard tell of him. You think he lies?”
    â€œWhat else? No man can cross the Burning Lands. Peddlers always have tall tales. They are for the women, to catch their interest so that afterward they can sell them trinkets at fancy prices. It is just that this one has a taller tale than most.”
    â€œHe wears strange clothes,” Martin said.
    â€œWhich he claims is the garb of his native land. I could devise something of the sort myself. With a pouch just above the waist, perhaps, for keeping rain off my head when I was carrying it under my arm!”
    The men with their heads beneath their arms who would come from beyond the Burning Lands was one of the fantasies with which polymuf maids sometimes frightened naughty children. Edmund and I laughed, but Martin said:
    â€œIt is not only his clothes that are different. The things he sells are, also. I looked at a necklace which my cousin bought. The workmanship was not like any I have seen.”
    â€œThere are always new fashions in necklaces,” Edmund said. “It means nothing.”
    â€œBut if the fires of the Burning Lands are dying down, and one could cross them . . .”
    â€œOne would find savages and polybeasts. What else?”
    â€œPerhaps another city, as he says.”
    â€œIn any case, who cares?” Edmund said. “There is enough to concern us in this city.” He turned to me, dismissing the other topic. “Luke, I am glad to see you again. But are you safe?”
    â€œI think so. And the High Seers would not have sent me here unless they thought the same.”
    â€œThe Spirits named you, not Peter, Prince in Waiting. And promised you glory. This is something that will be remembered, and for some the memory of it will be a stink in their nostrils.”
    â€œI