Book 3 - All Darkness Met Read Online Free PDF Page B

chops. Mutton chops! Hai! Has been age of earth since same have passed starved lips of impoverished ponderosity, self."
    Bragi prodded Mocker's belly with a sheathed dagger. "If you'll spare us the gourmet commentary, I'll explain."
    "Peace! Am tender of belly, same being..."
    Bragi poked him again. "This's it in a nutshell. For years Haroun raided Hammad al Nakir from camps in the Kapenrungs. From Kavelin and Tamerice, using money and arms from Altea and Itaskia. I've always looked the other waywhen he smuggled recruits down from the northern refugee centers."
    "Uhm. So?"
    "Well, he became an embarrassment. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get slow and soft. Stopped pushing. Now he just sits in the hills with his feet up. He throws in a few guys now and then so's El Murid stays pissed, but don't do him no real harm.
    "And El Murid just gets older and crankier. You saw his ambassadors?"
    "Just so. Snakes in grass, or maybe sand, lying in wait with viper fangs ready...."
    "They're out in plain sight this time. They've delivered a dozen ultimatums. Either we close Haroun down or they'll do it for us. They haven't so far. But they're on safe ground. Attacking Haroun's camps would cause a stink, but nobody would go to war to save them. Not if El Murid doesn't try converting us to the one true faith again. It might even solve a few problems for cities with a lot of refugees. Without Haroun keeping them stirred up, they'd settle down and blend in. Distracting the troublemakers is the main reason Haroun gets help from Raithel."
    Altea's ambassador nodded. Prince Raithel had died recently, but his policies continued.
    "So. Old friend, in newfound, secure circumstance, is asking, should same be safeguarded by selling other old friend down river?"
    "No. No. I want to know what he's up to. Why he hasn't done anything the past few years. Part I know. He's studying sorcery. Finishing what he started as a kid. If that's all, okay. But it's not his style to lay back in the weeds.
    "El Murid is a sword hanging over Kavelin by a thread. Is Haroun going to cut the thread? You know him. What's he planning?"
    Mocker's gaze drifted to his wife's brother Valther. Valther was the shadow man of Vorgreberg, rumored to manage Bragi's cloak and dagger people.
    Valther shrugged, said, "That's all we know. We don't have anybody in there."
    "Oho! Truth exposes bare naked, ugly fundament before eyes of virginal, foolish self. O Pervert, Truth! Begone!" And to Bragi, perhaps the simplest statement he had ever made: "No."
    "I didn't make my proposition."
    "Am greatest living necromancer. Am reader of minds. Am knowing blackest secret at heart of hearts of one called friend. Am not one to be used."
    Gjerdrum countered, "But Kavelin needs you!"
    An appeal to patriotism? No bolt could have flown wider of its mark. The fat man laughed in Gjerdrum's face. "What is Kavelin to me? Fool. Look. See self. Am clear blue-eyed Nordmen? Am Wesson?" He glanced at Bragi, shook his head, jerked a thumb at Eanredson.
    Bragi knew Mocker. Mocker was terribly upset when he spoke this plainly. Ragnarson also knew how to penetrate the fat man's distress.
    He produced a large gold coin, pretended to examine it in a shaft of light piercing one of the narrow windows. "How's Ethrian?" he asked. "How's my godson?" He spun the coin on the polished tabletop inches beyond Mocker's reach. He produced another, made a similar examination.
    The fat man began sweating. He stared at the money the way alcoholics stare at liquor after an enforced abstinence. They were Kaveliner double nobles specially struck for the eastern trade, beautiful pieces with the twin-headed eagle and Fiana's profile in high, frosted relief. They weren't intended for normal commerce, but for transfers between commercial accounts in the big mercantile banks in Vorgreberg. The gold in one piece represented more than a laborer could earn in a year.
    Mocker had seen hard times. He did mental sums, calculating temptation's value