Morningstar Read Online Free PDF

same, thigh-length, but he had gained a pair of leather trews that glistened as if oiled. A scabbarded longsword was belted at his waist and he carried a longbow and a quiver of arrows. He was every inch the woodsman.
    ‘Well, at least one robber has been brought to my fire,’ I muttered, angry at the intrusion.
    He grinned and sat down opposite me, laying his bow against the trunk of an oak tree. ‘Now who would rob you, bard? You are all bones and your clothes are rags. I’ll wager there is nothing left in the pocket of your boot?’
    ‘That’s a wager won,’ I told him. ‘I did not expect to find you here.’
    He shrugged. ‘I stayed for a while in Ziraccu, then headed north after the suicide.’
    ‘Suicide? What suicide?’
    ‘The woman whose jewels I stole. The stupid baggage tied a rope to her neck and threw herself from the staircase. After that they were really after my blood. I can’t see why, I didn’t ask her to do it.’
    I sat and looked at him in disbelief. A woman who had loved him so desperately that she had killed herself when he left her. And yet he showed no remorse, or even sorrow. Indeed I don’t think the event touched him at all.
    ‘Did you feel nothing for her?’ I asked him.
    ‘Of course I did; she had a wonderful body. But there are thousands of wonderful bodies, bard. She was a fool and I have no time for fools.’
    ‘And who do you have time for?’
    He leaned forward, holding his hands out to the fire. ‘A good question,’ he said at last. But he did not answer it. He seemed well-fed and fit, though he carried no pack or blankets. I asked him where he was staying, but he merely grinned and tapped his nose.
    ‘Where are you heading?’ he asked me.
    ‘I am heading north.’
    ‘Stay in the forest,’ he advised. ‘The Ikenas fleet attacked Torphpole Port and landed an army there. I think the forest will be safer for a while. There are plenty of towns and villages here, and the tree-line extends for two-hundred miles. I can’t see the Ikenas invading it; it will be safer than the lowlands.’
    ‘I need to earn my bread,’ I told him. ‘I do not wish to become a beggar, and I have little skill at husbandry or farming. And anyway a bard is safe - even if there is a war.’
    ‘Dream on!’ snapped Mace. ‘When men start hacking away with swords no one is safe, not man, woman nor child. It is the nature of war; it is bestial and unpredictable. Face it, you are cut off here. Make the best of it. Use your magick. I’ve known men walk twenty miles to see a good, ribald performance.’
    ‘I do not give ribald performances,’ I told him curtly, the memory of the meat-pie display surging from the recesses of my mind.
    ‘Shame,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you would consider the shell game? A magicker ought to be magnificent at it. You could make the pea appear wherever the least money was bet.’
    ‘Cheat, you mean?’
    ‘Yes, cheat,’ he answered.
    ‘I ... I ... that would be reprehensible. And anyway the magick would soon fade if I put it to such use. Have you no understanding of the art? Years of study and self-denial are needed before the first spark of magick can be found in a soul. Years! It cannot be summoned for personal gain.’
    ‘Forgive me, bard, but when you perform in taverns is that not for personal gain?’
    ‘Yes, of course. But that is honest work. To cheat a man requires... deceit. Magick cannot exist in such circumstances.’
    He looked thoughtful for a moment, then added several small sticks to the fire. ‘What of the Dark Magickers?’ he asked. ‘They summon demons and kill by witchery. Why does their magick not leave them?’
    ‘Shh,’ I said, alarmed. ‘It is not wise to speak of such as they.’ Hastily I made the sign of the Protective Horn and whispered a spell of Undoing. ‘They make pacts with... unclean powers. They sell their souls, and their power comes from the blood of innocents. It is not magick, but sorcery.’
    ‘What is the