Song of the Ancients (Ancient Magic Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of his paint palette.
    The painting drew me inside. He worked on the top half of the canvas, adding details to an eerily familiar scene. The same view I had looked down on the day before from atop Cathedral Rock.
    I inched further into the room, taking care not to disturb his work, but he turned and smiled, pointing silently to a nearby chair.
    He completed the subtle tinges of color in the clouds swirling like mist around the butte, sluicing a wedge of yellow from his knife onto a corner of his palette, then a smaller bit of copper brown, swirling the colors together but not blending. To the swirl he added just a knife tip of blue-gray. Then he dotted his brush tip with white, drew it deftly across his palette colors, and began working on the edges of the clouds.
    Totally absorbed, I watched him work for the better part of an hour as he added golden highlights to the cloudy sky on his canvas.
    Finally he put his brush in a jar of turpentine sitting on the edge of his easel, and stretched his arms behind him to ease his stiff back, seeming surprised to find me there.
    "I know the spot," I told him quietly. "I saw it yesterday, and you have it just right. The clouds swirl around the top, just as you've painted it."
    "Where were you watching from?" he asked.
    "The top of Cathedral Rock."
    "And what does the wind do there?" he asked me seriously.
    "It blows straight up the cliff into your face."
    "Ah, yes, but what else?"
    I hesitated, unsure how my answer would sound to this stranger. "It sings."
    The man regarded me silently with his coal-black eyes. Then he reached behind him for a printed flyer on the counter, scribbled a note on it and handed it to me.
    "If you heard singing, then you should know the rest. This is the number of my uncle. Call him. Tell him I sent you because you have heard the Song of the Ancients."
    The next morning at work, I thought about the painter, Rod Standing Bear and his puzzling suggestion. But I put off calling his friend, vacillating between skepticism and awe. The whole scene on Cathedral Rock felt like a dream. But the foreign words I had heard seemed so real. On the other hand, I was the rational one who didn't believe the tales of vortex energies. New Age voodoo I'd told Kamaria. Then one visit to a vortex site and I heard singing.
    Just to be sure, I typed 'wakan tanka' into my computer and hit 'search.' A full page of selections—all headed 'wakan tanka'— popped up on the screen.
    I scrolled through the selections, scanning headers. Lakota Indian term meaning Great Spirit. Pre-Christianity, it refers to an organization of sacred entities whose power resides in everything.
    Wakan tanka, we watch the earth . So I hadn't imagined the singing, and the song had a message. Someone – or something – was watching. Who were they? And why did I the hear them? Standing Bear was right. I needed to try and get some answers from his uncle.
    I was looking through Internet sites and making notes when Nuin appeared in my office doorway.
    He greeted me with a smile. He'd seemed so angry after the full moon when I wouldn't kiss him, but he appeared to have re-covered. "Rumor said you wouldn't mind if I came back here," he said easily. "I wanted to ask about your friend Nicholas and his aunt."
    I stopped working, and he slid into the chair across the desk from me.
    "Have you met the aunt?" he asked.
    I minimized the screen and folded my arms over my notes. "No."
    "What do you know of her?"
    "Nothing, except Nicholas is thinking about selling her house. Why do you ask?"
    Nuin's gaze slid from mine. "Her name seems familiar."
    I frowned, thinking. "I didn't tell you her name."
    "You didn't? Huh. I guess I just assumed it was Orenda also." He leaned forward and clasped his hands on my desk, raising his eyes slowly to look at me through impossibly thick lashes. Why do men always get those beautiful lashes? I stared at them for too long. Then switched to his lips. He stretched them into a slow smile.