Phoenix Rising Read Online Free PDF

leaving our people behind, by leaving our family behind, only by that can we escape the curse and yet fulfill the command of the Lord Terian.”
    The Lord of Waters nodded slowly, seeing that he understood both with head and heart the reason and necessity for his quest. She glanced to the door, assuring herself it was still closed, and then came as close as he had ever seen to crying; she buried her face in her hands and sat still for long moments before she dropped her hands and looked up. “Where will you go, Tobimar? My son, what will you do ?”
    Suddenly he laughed and grabbed her hands, knelt in front of her. “Mother, Mother, please don’t cry. Don’t worry. I know you’re afraid— I’m afraid, some—but . . . I never wanted to be a Lesser Lord of a city, or even the Lord of Waters myself.”
    The eyes looking back at him were suspiciously bright, as though tears hovered there waiting to be shed. But her lips slowly turned upward. “The youngest son becoming his grandfather’s image . . . not to be, then?”
    “More of my father and—perhaps—my mother in me.”
    She laughed, still with a hint of tears. “Perhaps indeed. Was it so obvious that this robe chafes at times?”
    “To your children, I think so, Mother.”
    “Then what will you do, Tobimar?” She studied him. “You are a marvelous quick study with a sword.”
    “And I’ve learned from Master Khoros.”
    She looked grim for a moment. “Yes. He said you had much power of the spirit, to use the spirit to see that which might be invisible, to touch that which lay beyond your hands. And he gave me something when he left . . .”
    “What? What is it, Mother?” The question was not just for what the mage might have left behind, but what bothered her so much.
    “I wonder now . . . if he knew, somehow, even though not all the priests could have seen what was to come. For he said that it was for you ‘when the time came.’ And what other time could he have meant?” She rose and crossed to the miniature vault set in her chambers, touched the door, which opened. Inside were many things that he strained to see, but when she turned back all she held was a sealed piece of parchment . . . no, it was a leaf, as Master Khoros had often written upon, a leaf from the Mynoli plants that grew near oases, tough, flexible even when dry.
    “Take it . . . but do not open it until you have left. He said also that ‘wisdom comes only to those who seek it, never to those who demand it. Listen to what is said by your heart.’”
    That was Khoros, all right. He took the leaf-parchment and tucked it away inside his own robes. “So . . . I’ll do what I can, Mother. I’m a swordsman and a Silverun; I’ll help people as I can. And I’ll find what was lost. One day I will be able to tell you who we were, and show us where to go.”
    She suddenly embraced him. “I will pray to Terian that you do, Tobimar. I will pray every day, so that my son will one day stand before me . . . as my sister never did again.”

3

    Tobimar stood at the rail of the Lucramalalla and stared at Skysand, the great capital city sharing the name of the entirety of the gem-scattered mountains and golden sands of the country itself. The rising sun struck the seven Lesser Towers and made them seem forged of gold, while the central Great Tower, which was in fact gilded, blazed as though poured from a furnace of auric fire. Sparks of other color shimmered in that light, the light of his departure; glittering hints of ruby, argent, sapphire, emerald, other colors more exotic and rare from the mystical gems that were set as both decoration and defense in the towers and walls of Skysand.
    Wind-whipped strands of long black hair across his face, hair that had somehow escaped the band he’d used to tie it back with, and the combination gave him an excuse for the tears that trickled from his eyes. It wasn’t that he needed an excuse, exactly; it was just that a part of him was glad he was