The Coming Of Wisdom

The Coming Of Wisdom Read Online Free PDF

Book: The Coming Of Wisdom Read Online Free PDF
Author: Dave Duncan
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, series, Novel
Nnanji, and this seems like a good chance.” He flashed that heart-melting smile again.
    Confused and unhappy, Quili mumbled something—she was not sure what—and headed for the road. As she entered the gorge, the sun tucked itself up into the clouds, and the World became gloomier and more drab. She had not lied, but she had left these swordsmen in ignorance of their danger. She must try to prevent bloodshed.
Merciful Goddess
! Whom was she supposed to shield—the workers, or the sorcerers, or the swordsmen?
    †††
    Wallie paced slowly back along the jetty, gathering his thoughts. His boots made hollow drum noises on the weathered planks, and beside him Nnanji’s kept time. Nnanji was waiting in excited silence to hear what revelations the great Lord Shonsu was about to impart.
    The jetty was stained with cattle dung—probably the estate exported cattle to the nearest city, Ov. The River was very wide, the far shore a faint line of smudge, and no sails marred the empty expanse of gray and lifeless water. At Hann the River had been about the same width, yet Hann lay a quarter of a World away. The River was everywhere, Honakura had said, and in a lifetime of talking with pilgrims in the temple, he had never heard tell of source or mouth. Apparently it was endless and much the same everywhere, a geographical impossibility. The River was the Goddess.
    No sails . . . “The ferry’s gone!”
    “Yes, my lord.” Nnanji did not even sound surprised.
    Wallie shivered at this evidence of divine surveillance, then forced his mind back to the matter at hand. Twice before he had told his story, but this time would be harder. Honakura had accepted it as an exercise in theology. Believing in many worlds and a ladder of uncountable lives, he had been puzzled only that the dead Wallie Smith should have been reincarnated as the adult Shonsu, instead of as a baby. That was a miracle, and priests could believe in miracles. Honakura had wanted to hear about Earth and Wallie’s previous existence, but those would not interest Nnanji.
    Jja had not cared about the mechanism or the reason. She was content to know that the man she loved was hidden inside the swordsman, an invisible man with no rank or craft, as alienated from the World as she was. Only thus could a slave dare to love a Seventh. Nnanji’s attitude would be very different.
    The two men reached the end of the pier and stopped.
    “Nnanji, I have a confession to make. I have never lied to you, but I have not told you the whole truth.”
    Nnanji blinked. “Why should you? It was you the Goddess chose to be Her champion. I am honored to be allowed to help. You need not tell me more, Lord Shonsu.”
    Wallie sighed. “I did lie to you, then, I suppose. I said my name was Shonsu . . . and it isn’t.”
    Nnanji’s eyes grew very wide, strange pale spots in his grimy face. No man of the People could ever look unshaven, but his red hair had been blackened the previous day with a blend of charcoal and grease. Later adventures had added guano and cobwebs, road dust and blood. Now thoroughly smeared, the resulting film made him look comic and ridiculous. But Nnanji was no joke. Nnanji had become a very deadly killer, much too young to be trusted with either the sword skill his mentor had taught him so rapidly or the power that came with his new rank—a swordsman of the Fourth had the potential to do a mountain of damage. Nnanji would have to be kept under very close control for a few years, until maturity caught up with his abilities. That might be why the gods had ordered that he be irrevocably bound by the arcane oath to which the present conversation must lead.
    “I did meet with a god,” Wallie said, “and what he told me was this: the Goddess had need of a swordsman. She chose the best in the World, Shonsu of the Seventh. Well, he said that there was none better, which is not quite the same thing, I suppose. Anyway, this swordsman failed, and failed
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