Sung in Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

overlooking the Golden Crescent, the miles of waterfront facing the Bridge of the World, that long, narrow, snaking channel connecting the Amor Ocean with the Middle Sea. The ruin of an ancient watchtower stood at the headland's tip.
    Around it were structures of recent vintage, the Protector's original and now personal shipyard.
    As Rider approached he saw his father's ships protruding from their cradles like the brightly colored humped backs of whales breaking the surface of a flotsam-strewn sea. Twelve of them, in a variety of shapes and sizes. The family wealth.
    The Jehrke yards were more still than the greater yards around them. Here even the guards were on holiday.
    A shadow fell across Rider's path. He looked up at the four-hundred-foot mast which rose beside the ruined watchtower. In his youth, in rare moments when he was free of studies, he had climbed that tower and watched the particolored sails scud along the Bridge, outward bound or coming home. So often he had longed to fly away upon those canvas wings, to lands of adventure ...
    There was adventure enough now. And a lifetime's worth to come.
    He entered the vast, long, hollow building where airships were brought out of the weather, making not a sound. He listened. Seconds later there was a pop, like a dry branch breaking, from far down the building. A startled exclamation, then curses, echoed off the empty walls.
    Rider began walking, making no effort to keep his heels from clicking on the polished stone floor.
    The cursing ceased. It was followed by a rustling, like that of frantic rats in a wall. As Rider neared the doorway beyond which his quarry waited, he heard a sob of frustration.
    He stepped through the doorway into what had been his father's shipyard office.
    The man caught there, one hand inside a desk that refused to let him go, was not surprised to see him. He had a dagger in his left hand.
    "Vlazos!" Rider said, startled. "I thought you were with the army in Kleyvorn."
    Vlazos said nothing.
    Rider pulled up a chair. "It does come together, though."
    Vlazos hammered the desk with his dagger.
    "Tell me about it," Rider said. He stared hard at his captive, his gaze like that of the fabled snake. He made a gesture with his left hand, caught Vlazos' gaze and held it.
    Vlazos' mouth opened and closed like that of a guppy as he fought a compulsion to betray his confederates. "Tell me who else is participating in this atrocity."
    Rider took several measured breaths, counting. His anger threatened to overwhelm him. He could not comprehend why a man of Vlazos' status would betray Shasesserre for personal gain.
    Rider's spell took the inhibitions off the telling of the truth. He used it sparingly, for societies are founded upon mutually shared self-deceptions. But in Vlazos' case the spell opened no floodgate. Had the man acted from idealistic, if misguided, motives, he would have defended himself.
    Silence, too, is a telling of truth. Greed and powerlust were the foundation stones of the conspiracy threatening Shasesserre's peace.
    "Where, besides your mansion, has your cabal set up?" Rider demanded. "Who belongs?"
    Vlazos was under the spell fully now. He began naming names, most of them ones Rider expected.
    They were men who obstructed the Protector at every turn.
    "And Kralj Odehnai? How did he become involved?"
    Vlazos' breath caught in his throat. He gobbled, and scratched at his neck. His face puffed and darkened. His eyes grew huge. He was strangling on sorcery.
    Rider heard someone move in the great space outside. He did not turn, for he was trying to find the end of the spell killing Vlazos, to unravel it before the man suffocated. He could not
    ... Vlazos got out one whimper before life abandoned him.
    Rider rose. "Shy key?" he murmured. "What would that mean?"
    He rushed out of the office. Nothing stirred within the cavernous building. But the far door, through which he himself had entered, stood ajar. It leaked a pane of light. He had not left