Natural Ordermage

Natural Ordermage Read Online Free PDF

Book: Natural Ordermage Read Online Free PDF
Author: L. E. Modesitt
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Epic
and get a piece.”
    Nuelya had slices cut and set on small crockery plates, with the reddish juice oozing out from the golden brown crust. “Take a plate and one of the small beakers, and settle at the long table over there. We have a bit of watered ale for you young people. Not enough to upset your folks but enough to go with the redberry pie.”
    Rahl maneuvered things so that he was seated beside Jienela and across from Fahla. Mostly he listened as the others chattered.
    “… Quelerya’s always looking for something she can tell… like a mouser…”
    “Not so bad as Widow Wylla. She peeks through her shutters so that no one knows she’s looking…”
    As he listened, Rahl took his time eating the redberry and spaced out his sips of the ale.
    After he took the plates back to the pails in the kitchen and washed both his plate and Jienela’s, he eased back to where she stood at one side of the other four.
    “Good cheese is hard to find, the kind that will keep,” Fahla was saying. “So are good knife blades, especially here on Reduce, Father’s always saying…” -
    Rahl touched Jienela’s forearm. ‘This way… toward the lamp.“
    “But…”
    “I just want to see if something is as I thought.” After a moment, Jienela took several steps forward.
    Rahl glanced from her eyes to the lamp and back again. He smiled. “I thought so.” She offered a. puzzled frown.
    “The yellow-gold flecks in your eyes are the same color as the yellow in the lamp flame. Maybe that’s why your eyes always look so alive.” He reached out and squeezed her hand, gently, and-only for a moment.

V
    By late morning on threeday, Rahl had finished copying another two of the stories within Tales of the Founders and was beginning on the next. He also had bruises on his right shoulder and his left thigh from the early-morning sparring session with his father.
    The workroom door opened, and Kian stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He carried an ancient leather folder. “What do you think of the book now?”
    “It’s interesting.” So far the stories were more like terrible or boring, but Rahl didn’t want to say what he really thought. Creslin had been an idiot to flee Westwind to avoid a pleasant life in Sarronnyn. Instead, he’d had to try to build a land on what had been a huge desert isle. He’d almost died a half score of times, and he’d been blind for much of his life and died younger than he should have. While Rahl was glad Creslin had succeeded, for his own selfish reasons, he didn’t have to approve of what Creslin had done. He knew his father would hardly appreciate his comments. “Where have you been? I didn’t see you leave, but you were gone when I got back from checking the ink.”
    “I was over at Alamat’s. He wanted me to write a letter to his son in Valmurl.”
    “Valmurl? That’s in Austra. How…” Rahl didn’t ask why Kian had gone to the weaver rather than having
    Alamat come to the scrivener. These days, scriveners couldn’t be too choosy.
    “By ship. It will cost two silvers, and Lieran will have to pick it up at the port-master’s at the harbor there.”
    How did a weaver’s son end up in Valmurl? Rahl wondered. “Two silvers for just a letter?”
    “How else can he keep in touch?” asked Kian. “Lieran, insulted ‘Magister Rustyn. Rustyn told him to behave. Lieran told Rustyn that he was a useless flea on the back of the mangy dog that was the Council. They put him on the next ship out. He was lucky it was bound to Austra, and not Candar or Hamor.”
    “Oh.” Lieran didn’t sound terribly dangerous. Stupid, but hardly dangerous to the Council. “When did this happen?”
    “Nine years ago. Alamat finally got the first letter from Lieran something like three years ago. It took a while for the boy to get settled, but he’s a weaver in Valmurl now.” Kian shook his head. “When Lieran talked to Rustyn, he’d had too much hard cider and not enough sense to go home and
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