Sword of Wrath (Kormak Book Eight) Read Online Free PDF Page A

monk.”
    Marketa sank down on the thick pillows of her divan and took a pull on the hookah of swiftweed as she tried to gather her thoughts. The message from the Courts of the Moon had been a strange and disturbing one, but she was obliged to pass it along.
    The soothing smoke from the water-pipe entered her lungs and began to calm her frayed nerves. She needed it; it had been a long night, full of terrible news. This whole day, messages had flickered through her magical mirror from her patron Eldrim in the realms far to the east. She felt the strain of that sorcerous contact almost as much as she had felt it from Vorhkul’s terrible blighted presence within the palace. A corrupted Old One, a servant of Shadow—it did not seem possible in this day and age, but now she knew it was. No wonder the Mistress of Magic was so upset.
    “He did not notice, and he was never out of your sight?”
    “He did not see me.” The changeling pursed its lips. Were they thinner now than they had been a few moments ago? It looked very striking and aristocratic now, almost like her first husband. Did the changeling know that? Most likely. It would have been briefed very thoroughly at the Courts of the Moon. Useful as it was, she would not be sorry to see the back of it. Its presence made her deeply uneasy. If the king or his damned brother found out that her retinue contained a changeling, the consequences would be awful.
    Of course, they could not find out. Changelings were impossible to detect by any known sorcery. The things that let a changeling alter its form were not magical; they were a product of the way its body had been altered by the fleshsculptors.
    She recalled a class long ago. A corpse laid out on a dissection slab, and a scalpel going in. The body had belonged to a changeling, one that had displeased its master. The Old Ones had no trouble spotting a changeling, even if everyone else had.
    She recalled the flesh being peeled away from the face, and the strange webs of muscle and tendon beneath. She recalled the pouches containing odd fluids that had burst under the instructor’s knife, and the vein-like channels writhing like living things away from the blade. Those cords and cables could tighten, alter the shape of the face. The sacs could pump liquids into sub-dermal reservoirs, making the owner look fatter or thinner at will. The same arrangements could be found all over the changeling’s body.
    Tiny dye pouches near the tear ducts enabled the changeling to alter the colour of its eyes. Its bones could telescope and its spine lengthen, allowing the creature to become taller or shorter. Changelings’ voice boxes were altered to allow them to imitate almost any speaker. They could even change their scents so that guard beasts could not spot them.
    The changelings were a breed apart, taught to fight and to kill with their bare hands. They learned scores of languages and dialects, as well as acting and dancing and courtly graces. They were trained by masters of poison and the blade. They were perfect assassins, spies and courtiers.
    No one knew where they came from or who had originally made them. She just knew what the rumours told her, that they were everywhere within the Lunar realms, reporting back to their masters, the all-seeing eyes of the Moon. She wondered if this was the only one in her retinue. She doubted it. There was probably at least one more, reporting her actions to the Courts.
    The only way she could tell would be to perform a dissection on each of her people. She had tried various spells, but they had all failed.
    “Mistress?” The words broke into her reverie.
    “Yes?” Marketa said, trying to recollect what the changeling had been saying.
    “I said, the Guardian is now within the palace. Do you want me to keep him under observation or not?”
    Marketa shook her head. Her mistress had spoken to her directly through the mirror that connected its counterpart in the Courts of the Moon. “I have new