Falcons of Narabedla Read Online Free PDF

flowers of Karamy’s garden—I remembered their lotus song. A song of welcome? Or of danger?
    I was not alone in the garden. Men, kilted and belted in the same gaudy red and gold as the flowers, passed and repassed restlessly, unquiet as chained flames. For a moment the old vanity turned uppermost in my mind. For all her slaves, all her—lovers, Karamy paid tribute to the Lord of the Crimson Tower! Paid—would continue to pay!
    The men passed me, silent. They were sworded, but their swords were blunt, like children’s toys; they were a regiment of corpses, of zombies. Their salutes as I passed were jerky, mechanical.
    A high note sang suddenly in the flowers; I felt, not heard, their empty parading cease. In a weird ballet they ranged themselves into blind lines that filed away nowhere; toy soldiers, all alike.
    And between the backs of the toy-soldiers and the patterned, painted flowers, I saw a man running. Another me, from another world, thought briefly of the card-soldiers, flat on their faces in the Red Queen’s garden. Wonderland. I heard myself say, with half-conscious amusement “They all look so alike until you turn them over!”
    The man running between the ditched flower-beds was no dummy from a pack of cards. I saw him beckon, still running. He called to me; to Adric.
    â€œAdric! Karamy walks here—just listen to the flowers! I was afraid I’d have to get all the way into the tower to find you!” His voice was urgent, breathless; he slid to a stop not three feet from me. “Narayan knew they’d freed you! He’s outside the gates. He sent me to help. Come on!”
    The sight of the man touched another of those live-wires in my brain; the name of Narayan , another still. “Narayan—” I said in dull recognition. The word, on my lips, hit a chord of fear, of dread and danger—
    But I had come straight from Evarin. I knew the man; I knew the response he expected, but the brief glimpse into Evarin’s mirror had set up a chain of actions I could not control. I tried to put out my hand in friendly greeting; instead I felt, with horror, my fingers at my belt and tried, without success, to halt the sword that flew without volition from its sheath. The man backed away, his eyes full of terror. “Adric—no—the Sign—” he held up one arm, deprecatingly, then howled with agony, clutching the severed fingers. I heard my own voice, savage, inhuman, the thin laughter of Evarin snarling through it. “Sign?? There’s a sign for you!”
    The man threw himself out of range; but his face, convulsed with pain, held a stunned bewilderment. “Adric—Narayan promised—you were sane—” he breathed.
    I forced my sword back into the scabbard, staring without comprehension at the blood from the wound I had inflicted, and at the darting heads of the flowers. I could not kill this man who carried the name of Narayan on his tongue.
    The flowers twitched—stirred—threw tendrils at the man’s bleeding hand. A quick nausea tightened my throat; I motioned urgently to him.
    â€œRun!” I begged, “Quick, or I can’t—”
    The flowers shrilled. The man threw back his head, his eyes wide with panic, and screamed.
    â€œKaramy! Aiiieeeee—!” he staggered back wildly, teetering on the edge of the ditch. I cried another warning, incoherent—but too late. He trod on the flowers—stumbled across the little ditch. The writhing flower-heads shot up shoulder-high. They screamed a wild paean of flower-music, and he fell among them, sprawling, floundering helplessly. I heard him scream, hoarsely, horribly—I turned my eyes away. There was a wild thrashing, a flailing, a yell that died and echoed among the brilliant towers. There was a sort of purring murmur from the blossoms.
    Then the flowers stilled and were quiet, waving innocently behind their ditches.
    Karamy, gold and fire,