The Fortress of Glass Read Online Free PDF

town....'"
    Ilna's road had led from Barca's Hamlet to Carcosa, the ancient capital on the other coast of Haft; and from Carcosa she'd gone to Hell where at the cost of her soul she'd learned to weave as no human could. She'd used her new skills in the service of Evil and in her own service, because she'd returned from Hell as surely an agent of Evil as any demon was.
    Garric had freed Ilna from the darkness she'd sold herself to for love of him, but nothing-no deed, no apology, no remorse-could undo the things she'd done while she rejoiced in the power to make others act as she and Evil chose. So be it. She'd live the best way she could, helping the friends who'd been wiser and stronger and knew Evil only as an enemy. And whenever she could, she'd weave patterns that would make life a little less bleak for those who saw them.
    The patterns helped even Ilna os-Kenset, who'd never forgive herself for the harm she'd done through anger and pride in her own skill. Her fingers worked, and her lips quirked wryly. She wasn't good at forgiving others either, if it came to that.
    "'... they thought that he was the king," Chalcus sang, and Merota joined in on the harmony. Ilna glanced back. The child was clasping the sailor's left hand in both of hers, her face bright with delight.
    It was remarkable the way the noble Lady Merota had taken to them, the peasant girl and the sailor who'd once been worse things. Merota had tutors, of course, and advisors to manage the properties and investments to which she'd fallen heir; but her parents were dead, and she'd never had anything like real friendship until she met Ilna.
    Ilna knew how people treated an orphan girl without anyone to protect her. She couldn't change the whole world; but while she lived no one was going to use Merota as a stepping stone on their route to wealth and power.
    The clouds on the eastern horizon had grown into an overcast smearing the heavens like lime wash over gray stone. The sun, barely past zenith, was a bright patch to the south. The sky wasn't stormy, and the sea moved as gently as ripe barley ruffled by a breeze. The threat, the lurking power, was no part of the natural world.
    But it was present nonetheless.
    "'What news, what news, Lord Thoma?' she said," sang Merota, taking the women's parts alone now. "'What news have you for me?'"
    Sailors were hard men, and sailors willing to serve under Captain Chalcus were often harder still; some of the Heron's crew were little more than brutes. They listened to the girl with pleasure as innocent as her own.
    It should come very shortly, Ilna thought, trying to read the pattern above the heavens.
    "'I've come to ask you to my weddin','" Chalcus sang, and the heavens split with a continuing roar.
    A blue-white glare hammered down, brighter than the sun in the first instants and growing brighter still. Ilna jerked her eyes away, but even the reflections from the wave-tops were so painfully vivid that she found herself squinting.
    The clouds bubbled back like mud shocked by a thrown stone. Something was coming, and it was coming fast.
    "Man your bloody benches!" Chalcus said. He was shouting, but even so the words were little more than a whisper over the sound of the sky tearing apart. "Get a way on, ye beggars, or the Sister'll swallow us down to Hell where we belong!"
    As Chalcus spoke, he grabbed Merota by the back of her tunics and tossed her aft, under the rising curve of the stern piece where the helmsman stood. It wasn't a safe place, but there was no real safety on a cutter; and as for gentle, that could wait for when there was time.
    Ilna unpinned her handloom, folding it with the warp and weft still in place and returning it to its canvas bag. She worked methodically, making the same motions at the same speed as she would if the Heron had landed in Mona Harbor and she was preparing to go ashore. She always moved as quickly as she could without error; and if putting away her loom was the last thing Ilna os-Kenset