Ecko Burning Read Online Free PDF

sometimes trinkets.
    Sometimes things rather less savoury.
    At the heart of the revelry, a huge, abstract mosaic lay basking under the fat, autumn sun. Here, the wind was keen and the area was free from the bazaar; here, the people broke away from the crowds to eat and wander, to watch the sparkling fountains and look above them at the tip of the city, the ten shining windows of the High Cathedral, the valour of the Founder’s Palace, both flawless against the azure sky. Up there, looking away from the plaza and out over the sea, stood the imperiously motherly statue of the GreatHeart Rakanne, keeping her eye upon the silent shores of Rammouthe Island.
    The Lord’s face was blunted and salt-rimed with age, though its decay could not be seen from below. Had she but turned, behind her and to her left, she could have looked down into one of her own creations, one of the joys of the city - her sunken, half-circle theatre. This morning, the tiers of seats housed a scattering of people, shaded by canvas roofings, like horizontal sails, that flapped tightly in the breeze. The theatre was behung with flying pennons of more woven grass - like all the others, they would be burned when the evening’s dancing began. For now, though, they framed the single herald and the pair of sparring fighters that occupied the stage.
    The harvest tourney, a long city tradition, had begun.
    Ousted combatants wandered freely back into the stalls and the roadways, garments stuck to their bodies with sweat, garlands hung about their necks. Some sought wine in solace or celebration; others eyed the kaleidoscope of wonders on offer, and plotted how to win in the following return.
    One of these paused by the awning of Scribe Mael.
    Intent on his sketch, Mael did not look up as something large blotted out the sunlight. He was putting the finishing touches to a picture that was unmistakably the new Lord Foundersdaughter, her face petulant, her curves overstated, the grasslands behind her rippling under a dramatically stormy sky. It was accurate enough to show Mael’s artistic talent, cutting enough to be funny, funny enough to ease the inherent disrespect.
    Several people were tittering behind their hands, but as they saw the fighter approach, they stopped and sidled away.
    Eventually Mael glanced around, saw that his audience had gone, and scowled.
    “You damned great oaf, Saravin,” he said.
    “I’ll have you hauled in. Look at that picture.”
    The two men had been friends for more than thirty returns, one settled in the hospice records room, the other roaming the city’s tithed farmlands as one of Fhaveon’s few warrior freemen, a sort of one-man Range Patrol.
    Mael pulled the picture from the easel, and handed it over.
    “Here, keep it if you want.”
    Saravin took it, grinned. “You trying to get me in trouble?”
    The scribe stood up from his stool to stretch his back. He was a small, slim man, stooped from returns of peering at manuscripts, and lately framed with a faint atmosphere of nervousness. Beside him, Saravin was as big and as furry as a northern bweao. The contrast was marked, but there were similarities in body language, in inflexion, which marked their very long friendship - in many ways, they’d grown up together.
    “Her Lordship going to show her face, later?” Mael asked. “Join her party?”
    Saravin eyed the picture. “Doubt it. Reckon her days of freedom are over, poor love.”
    “Love?” Mael sniffed, began to tidy up the inside of the tent. “Love is for -”
    “Poets and fools, I know.” For a second, the big man’s grin broadened. “I taught her everything I could - think my days are just as done as hers.” The grin vanished below his beard. “Being... deniable has its downside.” He eyed the picture thoughtfully. The young Lord’s hair and skirts flowed free in the wind - the same wind that rippled the autumn grass, that was even now -
    Mael grunted humorous assent with an edge of resentment that caused