The Makers of Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

when one day she somehow angered him and he hit her. A fraction of a second to see the smooth white skin turn blue and bruised on her face. A fraction of a second for his mother to look at him in the same way she looked at his father—and then do nothing. A fraction of a second for him to take his sister in his arms and decide to never, ever let anyone touch her, least of all himself.
    In the years that followed, Pencho lost an eye, fighting another man for a woman, while Trifon raised a hand to their own father and was never seen home again. Dominick barely remembered his other two, oldest, brothers, but in a village people talked, and no one had much good to say about them. Witless, savage, useless good-for-nothings, all of them. Primeval brutes with no sense of responsibility and control. He was not like them. He had been eight when he had hit Kalinka, but that day he had stopped being a brute and become a man.
    It took Mentor Dominick a fraction of a second, his foot flying towards the young man's head, to know that if he could have been a man while still a snotty little peasant, he would not stop being a man now.
    He still kicked his opponent's head, but carefully, with force controlled and calculated to incapacitate, no more. Not with force fed by mindless anger with his mind a helpless watcher. Not with force meant to destroy for the sake of destruction alone.
    "Before I decide to destroy you, I shall clarify my reasons," he whispered to the silent, crumpled figure, then span back, his knife again at the ready as a voice beside him sobbed, "Please! Please, don't!"
    She was beautiful, yes. Long dark hair framed a sweet, heart-shaped face and a body whose perfection was evident even through the cloak. She had large green eyes, currently focused on his with both fear and pleading. She did look like a samodiva, like a wild, outworldly woman full of danger and allure. But she was not the woman he sought.
    "Let him live. Please! He only wanted to protect me. You are like us. You found the way. Please! Don't start on this path with murder!"
    He made a step towards her, and she cringed but never stepped back. "Please!"
    Her eyes were so green, the color so saturated that he saw it even by the pale, insufficient moonlight. Like Kalinka's eyes had been, although Kalinka's hair had been light, almost white, like his own. This year she would have been sixteen. This girl did not look much older.
    "Calm down," he said, almost gently. "I won't hurt anyone if I don't have to."
    "No! Gerard, no!" She suddenly dashed towards Dominick and then behind him before he could even turn and see the man, conscious again, reaching out with a second dagger. "My love, don't be reckless! He is here! See? He is here. Don't fight! Please, both of you, stop fighting!"
    He was where? Only then did Dominick realize that the black shape of the Factory was not looming in its proper place any longer. A tiny street, a tunnel rather, that had not been there before the attack now stretched behind the couple. They blocked the way, watching him, the man's weaponless arm wrapped possessively around the woman's shoulders.
    "So he is." Gerard's voice, low and hostile. "Come then, Brother. Follow us, for wish as I might, I cannot forbid you passage. But"—he shifted his other hand so that his dagger was clearly visible, obviously having no intent to sheathe it—"Keep your hands off my concubine. Otherwise, I will kill you."
    "Calia." The girl swallowed, her words suddenly coming as if with difficulty. "My name is Calia." She looked away from Dominick and towards her husband. "I have a name, Ger."
    Gerard leaned towards her and kissed her lips, silencing her. "You have a name if I say that you do, darling. Now, let's go."
    A concubine? In today's Mierber? Dominick followed them in silence, these apparitions of a world long-gone, into the darkness and tunnels and empty, roofless rooms of a world hidden inside another world fading. This place still was the Steel