The Last Garrison (Dungeons & Dragons Novel) Read Online Free PDF

thousands of books, the tables cluttered with maps of nowhere Londih had ever been, because they were not maps of places one went. They were sky maps, of the stars and the moon, of the movement of other bodies which Londih did not know the names of, and would never know—even when he later returned to the observatory as a man the maps were just as forbidden, just as unknowable to one such as him. It was enough that the Old Stargazer knew them, and he had assured Londih they were of no consequence for him, after he had failed to understand the answer the old man had given to the only question Londih had ever asked, about the nature of the stars.
    “They are suns,” the Old Stargazer had said, a twinkling blinking in his eyes. “The stars are suns, and the sun you know is a star. You need not concern yourself with more than that, though. Considering this any further, Londih, will lead you away from your only real concern—when to plant and when to sow. When to hunt. Feed your charges and settle their little disputes, and leave the heavens to me.”
    Londih had not believed, but by then he could not question. By then he was a man, and he had seen what the Old Stargazer did to the Crook of Haven, how he imbued its crystals with a light that would only last a dozen years, that would need to be restored again. When Londih’s father had visited, the Old Stargazer had taken the Crook from his hands, then removed the feathers from the staff, replacing them with feathers he had gathered himself, because in those days the Old Stargazer still came down from his tower and walked among the people of Haven, although wouldn’t for much longer.
    When he was done he sent Londih’s father away, but not before calling Londih from the shadows, revealing his trespass to his furious father. Despite the treachery, the Old Stargazer calmed the chief, then anointed Londih the true heir of the Crook, so that the secret of the staff might not be revealed to the people of Haven, who might lose hope if they knew that no real power buttressed their chief, no deep power helped him keep them safe.
    Instead, there was only the trickery of the Crook, and the deep magic of the Old Stargazer, his wards woven deep into the mountain around them, and the knowledge of that had made Londih chief.
    Londih had become the next in line, but at what cost! His father’s heart, and then his sanity, as each year theOld Stargazer made the father send one of his children away, down into the city at the bottom of the mountain, with a sword and a shield and a bag of silver, to there seek the fortune that Haven no longer held for them, as they would not be chief.
    One day there were no more sons, no more daughters. No one left but Londih.
    And then his father was dead, and Londih was chief in fact as he had been in destiny, carrying the fading staff up the mountain path to the Observatory, so that the Old Stargazer might anoint him again.
    The Old Stargazer changed, became remote as the stars he studied. Then he’d had his own words for the other villagers, his own tasks among them, and it had been easy to believe he was a part of their village, that the task of astronomer was as necessary as cobbler or cooper. But no longer. The Old Stargazer was apart from them, his differentness was revealed, as apart from the other villagers as a sun is from a star.
    There was never sign of the old man, only his boy, Nergei, who Kohel had claimed to have rescued from the kenku.
    Kohel. The boy was as bad as Londih’s older brothers had been, and just as unworthy of the Crook, the station it symbolized, as Londih himself had once been. Unlike Londih, Kohel was an only child, andso one day the rule of Haven would be his. It was not an idea Londih enjoyed, but one he was trying to resign himself to, had been trying for the ten years since realizing his wife’s womb would produce no more children. With a son already born, there was no cause for divorce, and so Londih was stuck with his