Echoes of the Great Song Read Online Free PDF Page B

Blue-hairs.
    Eighteen days later, dehydrated and delirious, he had been hauled aboard a black ship. When he awoke the tall warrior was sitting at his bedside.
    “A valiant attempt, my friend,” he said. “Now I think you had best accept my offer.”
    Touchstone had done so. But it had now been two years since his capture. Two long, lonely years.
    “I will come home, Suryet,” he whispered. “Wait for me.”
    But as he was falling asleep he saw again the vision of the pillar of fire. Unlike most of his visions this was impossible to read, for surely ice and fire could not exist in the same place. Pushing it from his mind, the tribesman slept.

Chapter Three
    And while the Frost Giant slept they climbed his matted fur, ever higher towards the great jaws resting upon a mountain top. Each strand of fur was thicker than a man’s arm, and within the fur dwelt demons, spirits of evil men, condemned to live for ever upon the back of the Beast. Tail-avar carried his bow of lightning, Touch the Moon his axe of silver, but Storro had the greatest weapon of all. He alone could find the magic fang and draw its power
.
    From the
Morning Song of the Anajo
    Questor Ro returned to the
Serpent
just before dawn. He was exhausted, though not entirely discouraged. Six times they had linked to the emanations, only for the power to drift away after a few heartbeats. It was not failure that exasperated him. Rather it was the tantalizing closeness to success. His cabin, as befitted a Questor, was large and fitted with wide windows, and a second door which led to a small, but private roofed deck on the port side of the ship. When the
Serpent
had been fully powered the cabin would have been considered luxurious, with its wide couches, deep chairs and thick carpets. Now, however, the tall windows allowedheat from the brazier to escape and the cabin was always cold. Questor Ro believed Talaban had this in mind when he had offered him these quarters back in the summer warmth of the port city of Egaru, the second city. Questor Ro would have been infinitely warmer in the smaller cabin, below decks, occupied by his Vagar assistant, Onquer:
    Suppressing his irritation he added coal to the brazier. Then he practiced the first of the Six Rituals, seeking to ease away the bone-numbing weariness that exhaustion and intense cold had brought to his system. Sitting cross-legged upon the floor, head bowed, index fingers held to his temples, the little man chanted the Prayer of One. Concentration was difficult, and random thoughts and fears intruded on the prayer. Even so, the ritual brought him inner warmth. This was pleasant, but did nothing to alleviate the weariness. It hung on him with the weight of failure.
    How his enemies would love to see him return in shame. Caprishan would, of course, feign sympathy, while hiding his gap-toothed smile behind his fat hand. Niclin would be more openly hostile. He would be the one to point out the incredible waste of resources, highlighting the fact that he had predicted such an outcome, and had only sponsored it because of the once-infallible reputation of Questor Ro. The others would fall in behind them and Ro’s power on the Council would diminish rapidly.
    It will not happen, he told himself. I will not allow it. The seeds of doubt sprouted even as he made this promise. He had been right to believe that his newly designed pyramids could link to the Great Line. They had done so. And with ease. But they could not hold to it.
    Think, he ordered himself. The line could not be moving. The emanations were radiating from the White Pyramid some sixty miles away, beneath a mountain ofice. It was a solid object, existing in one place. Therefore the lines of power should be straight and constant, and, once found, form Communion. Yet it was as if the source of power was constantly shifting and moving like a frightened deer.
    You are missing something, he told himself.
    Questor Ro pushed himself to his feet. From a small casket