Penric's Demon Read Online Free PDF

incomprehensible. He thought to add, “Did you speak to Learned Ruchia in this fashion?”
    “In time,” said the Ruchia-voice, “we had silent speech.”
    How much time did that take? Pen wondered. And if it went on long enough, might a man no longer know which voice was his own? He shuddered, but wrenched his mind back to the moment. “You ought to have a name for when I mean all of you, as one. Not Demon. Something nicer than what I’d call a dog, for the five gods’ sakes. How if I pick something? Make it a present.”
    The silence this time was so long, he wondered if the creature had gone back to sleep, or into hiding, or whatever it did when he could not feel or hear it. “In twelve long lives,” it said quietly at last, “no one has ever offered us a present.”
    “Well, that’s not . . . not an easy thing. I mean, you don’t exactly have a body, so how could anybody give you any material gift? But a name is a thing of the air, of the mind and the spirit, so a fellow could give it to a spirit, right?” He felt he was making headway, here. And because betrothal had been lately on his mind, he tossed in, at a hazard, “A courting gift.”
    He had the sense of an explosive Huff! but no sound came with it. Had he thrown a creature of chaos into confusion? That seemed only fair, considering what it was doing to him .
    But then the ambiguous voice said, cautiously, “What do you offer? Penric of Jurald.”
    He hadn’t actually got that far in his thinking yet. He choked in panic. Steadied himself. Reached for inspiration, and caught it. “Desdemona,” he said, suddenly certain. “I read it in a book of tales from Saone, when I was a boy, and thought it sounded very fine. She was a princess.”
    A faint, flattered exhalation through his nose.
    “Amusing,” said the Ruchia-voice. It seemed to be the dominant one; was that because it was freshest? Or had the late divine held the creature longest? Or what?
    Another long silence; Pen yawned in exhaustion. Were they taking a vote in there? Had he started a civil war in his own gut? That could be bad. He was about to take it all back, when the ambiguous voice said, “ Accepted .”
    “Desdemona it is, then!” he said, relieved. He wondered if it would shorten to Des , when they grew to know each other better. Like Pen . That could be all right.
    “We thank you for your gift of the spirit. Pretty Penric . . .” The voice fell away in a weary whisper, and Pen guessed the uprooted creature was spent for the night.
    As was he. He staggered dizzily to bed.

    *     *     *

    The next morning’s ride brought them early to the big Crow River at the foot of the Raven Range, where they turned downstream on the main east-west road that followed it. The Ravens, once the mist cleared enough to unveil them, and before the afternoon rains closed in, were greener and less lofty than the fierce icy peaks in whose shadow Pen had grown up, but formidably rugged still. The road crossed the swelling river twice, once over a wooden span and once over a stone bridge with graceful arches, both with tolls collected by the villages that served them. With the spring melt, the Crow ran too high for upstream traffic, but rafts of logs or cargo packed in barrels still made their way down on the spate. Pen thought the nimble raft men must be brave to dare the cold waters, and beguiled an hour imagining himself one of their company.
    More than local traffic kept the road a busy one; merchants’ pack trains, small parties of pilgrims, and enclosed wagons were added to the usual farm carts, cows, pigs, and sheep. Three times they passed or were passed by galloping couriers, from towns or the Temple; the latter waved cheerily in return for Pen’s guards’ salutes. Courier , now there was an honorable task a lean, light man might undertake . . . though by the end of that second day’s ride, Pen’s backside was questioning this ambition.
    Nightfall brought them to a town