Jalia on the Road (Jalia - World of Jalon) Read Online Free PDF

developed a fuse wire shortly after learning how to make the powder. She soaked thread in a liquor of dissolved powder and let it dry.   The thread burned at a steady rate and she could set a time simply by cutting the right length. She would have become the most respected alchemist the guild had ever known if she had been born a boy.
    Over the past year she had made a ridiculously large amount of black powder, complete with long lengths of her fuse. They were hidden behind a false wall in her father’s warehouse. It had been the work of a single night to recover the materials and take them to Marco’s room. Marco hadn’t been entirely pleased when he realized the powder could explode and blow up both him and his guild.
    Two days earlier, Jalia and Marco placed a number of the small bags of the powder on buildings creating a circular route that skirted the edge of the city wall. The fuse wire dangled not far above the ground. As evening came to the city, Marco dressed up as a hawker and lit a blazing torch. He shouted out his wares as he lit the fuses in the sequence Jalia planned.
    The first explosion blew a large hole in the city wall. Smaller bags of powder exploded like fists hitting the walls. Jalia, dressed as a boy, shouted out that a giant was attacking them, a terrible invisible giant. Within seconds, everyone on the street was sure that they too had glimpsed this invading monster.
    Marco nailed a crudely written message onto a convenient wall. Later, at least a dozen people would tell the King’s Guard that they had seen the giant pin it there with a single tap of his mighty thumb.
    The message stated that Grog, the brother of Drog, wanted vengeance on Jalia for the death of his brother, and that the city would be reduced to rubble if she was not given to him before the end of the day.King Brun Trep sent out his Guards to find Jalia. Everyone in the city searched for her, but she was nowhere to be found.
     
    Brun Trep paced his throne room in a seething rage.
    “Why have my guards not dispatched this monster or found Jalia?” he demanded of his Chancellor.
    The Chancellor steepled his fingers and chose his words with great care.
    “We don’t know where the giant has gone. We only know where he is when he is destroying the city.”
    “What if he attacks the Palace?” the King demanded, “Will I be slain as I sleep?”
    “He is looking for Jalia al’Dare, and it is known giants can identify a person by the scent of their blood. She is not in the Palace, so he will not strike here,” the Chancellor explained patiently.
    “And you would have to be able to sleep through the end of the world to miss him coming for you,” he couldn’t help adding.
    The King glared at him. People who made fun of the King didn’t last long in Bagdor. “I wish I’d paid her now. At least we would know where she was. She has always been trouble, that girl. My son once came running home with a bloody nose after she punched him.”
    “I always thought Jalia was a wonderful little girl,” the Chancellor remarked, much to the King’s annoyance. “She is also very clever, as I remember.”
    “If all you are going to do is disagree with me, then you can get out,” the King shouted, and the Chancellor backed out of the room, bowing low as he went.
     
    By the early evening, the King was jumping at shadows. His wife and son had been moved to most secure part of the Palace. Apart from the guards outside his throne room, the King was alone.
    When he heard the sounds of smashing stone getting closer and closer to the Palace he called his guards to attend him, but on one came running. He went to the door and flung it open. The guards and his courtiers were lying on the floor. He walked to the nearest of them and kicked him, but the man didn’t so much as stir.
    “They have been drugged, I’m afraid,” Jalia told him in a cheerful voice that seemed to be coming from the ceiling. The King looked to find her perched