The Empty Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page A

blocks as finger paints.
    Telemakos looked down through the floor again. Inas was still waiting below, her expression anxious.
    “Is your face all right?” he asked.
    “My face? Oh, Athena’s scratches. It’s nothing. They’re not deep—she’s only got baby nails. Little monster, she’s so sad; I wish she’d let me hold her. But she only wants you. ‘Boy, boy, where is Tena’s boy,’ she cries, every waking minute.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “The najashi took her down to see the pet lion. And that creature Menelik is an emotional beast as well, as starving for your attention as your sister! The najashi is still trying to teach him to hunt like a dog, do you know?”
    “Yes, he tells me all about his hunting,” Telemakos whispered. “The lion hasn’t caught anything yet.”
    “The kennelmen don’t like to run it loose without you there. It’s not so obedient for the najashi as it is for you.” Inas took a deep breath. Then she added quickly, “If you want to send a letter to your mother without the najashi reading it, drop it through the ceiling here when there’s one of us below. If it’s safe we’ll bang the shutters three times, and if there’s no one else in the Globe Room, you can send a letter down.”
    If he did that, and any of the fourteen Scions reported it or was caught, by the terms of his covenant with Abreha, Telemakos could be crucified.
    “I won’t,” he whispered. “I won’t. It’s a noble offer, Inas, but I don’t want you to be punished with me. Thank you for the offer.” His throat suddenly ached. “Thank you.”
    “We are with you,” she said. “We are all with you.”
    With that she smiled at him suddenly, then stepped outside his limited view of the room below. He did not dare call out to see if she was still there.
    Telemakos swallowed the ache in the back of his throat and sat down again to the map spread over the Star Master’s writing table. But now, after Inas’s hurried vow of secret faith, the names of the rivers and cities ran together in his sight as though he had spilled a pot of ink across them. He dared not change a single pen stroke on these irrelevant documents; Abreha would check them against the copies. Mother of God, Telemakos thought, why am I learning this? What does any of it matter? Why would I ever need to know what water courses run near Hadrian’s Wall?
    And still he had not warned Gebre Meskal of the najashi’s threat to the Hanish Islands.
    That night Telemakos dreamed he was walking on Hadrian’s Wall. His left arm was sound and whole again, which made his heart sink, for in the back of his mind he knew that invariably some person or creature would hack it off before the dream ended. The mist came down so low he could not see his feet. Coming toward him along the wall in the opposite direction were two shapeless figures, one taller than the other, both black against the gray of the lowering sky. Telemakos knew that one was Gedar. The other he thought must be Anako, the man the salt smugglers called the Lazarus, who had first tried to blind Telemakos and then tried to kill him: the man Telemakos had sentenced to exile. They would have to pass close to each other, for the wall was narrow. Telemakos dreaded that his grandfather’s neighbor would greet him by name and let Anako know who he was. He kept his head down and did not look, but Gedar caught him by the wrist as they came abreast of each other.
    “Morningstar,” Gedar sneered, but that was not a name Anako knew, so Telemakos was still safe. He dared not protest or struggle. The merchant’s hand burned like cold fire where it was locked around Telemakos’s wrist, like the icy touch of hailstones, until he could no longer feel his arm.
    “So at last you’ve told your emperor all the najashi’s plans for stealing his island fortress. What king would trust you now?” Gedar taunted. “Liar. Deceiver. Traitorous toad. You should be named serpent, not sunbird.”
    But it was