The Melaki Chronicle Read Online Free PDF Page B

over the wind, “Elet!”
    Each word was an increasing effort until each syllable
caused pain. “See what I see!”
    The wind tore at his mouth, ripping his breath away. He
lowered the pattern to Abisin and merged them. “Hear what I hear!”
    He was not sure he even heard himself. A black cloud the
size of which struck fear in his heart roiled over the hilltop - the entire
town. With a last pull of effort from his fading consciousness, Melaki finished
the weather pattern and brought it down to the ground. A bolt of lightning
thicker than a temple pillar arced back and forth in the cloud above them and
shot down to strike the ground in front of Melaki.
    That was the last thing he remembered of his awakened state.
He felt his body fly through the air as the vision consumed him.
    He was standing on the same hilltop and Abisin was there.
Terror streaked his eyes but he was oddly transparent as if he were not all
there. The vision was always painful. The feeling of reality was sharpened here
in the vision-state. Everything felt more substantial. He could feel the hill
beneath him, smell the soil, feel the wind moreso than when he was not having
visions.
    The water barrier above flashed with odd lights. Enormous
lights that arced across the entire sky. The ground beneath him groaned and
began to shift. Something in the lights above was causing disturbances in the
ground below. Melaki was not sure how. The air was pregnant with energy and the
ground began to move. The overwhelming sensations were painful. Melaki sobbed
and tears streamed down Abisin's face.
    The ground jumped and then ripped. A fissure of gargantuan
size rent the town beneath them. Buildings were swallowed whole into the
fissure. Water from the ocean rushed in with a ferocity that tore the breath
from their mouths. Part of the land was shifting away and sinking. The ocean
reared up into a titanic wave and crashed down on the remaining part of the
town. Buildings were washed away like so much flotsam in a storm. Only those in
the hills to the far west survived.
    In a final act of horror, the hill on which they were
standing dropped from beneath them into darkness and water. Ocean spray
assaulted them as they fell. Their screams of terror were cut short by
oblivion.
     
    Visions were real. Visions were true, and visions never
failed.

CHAPTER 2
     
    Melaki wanted to rest, but he wanted a taste of freedom.
Occasionally initiates were given leave to walk the town nearby. But as that he
was now a full wizard of the fifth ward with his black robe and gold trimmings,
he wanted to be free.
    He would return and sleep in his initiate's room until
assigned something better the next day, but tonight he wanted a drink.
    Or three. Or five.
    He had spent the day trying to recover, trying to eat, and
trying to avoid the sudden avalanche of amazement at something never before
done by an initiate or wizard. He would have liked to stride through the halls
basking in the glow of praise, relishing his triumph, and reveling with those
who wanted to know how he did it. But he could not.
    I'm just not some hero from a story, is all. I'm just a
man.
    He stepped out into the cooling air, ignoring the
compliments of the initiate standing at the gate. What did he care what the
student thought?
    I am a full wizard now.
    He walked with an assured weariness to the tavern he liked
to frequent when he could get away, The Swaggering Swine. A painting on the
sign showed a pig prancing about with a cup in one hoof.
    The blast of warm air, noise, music and raucous voices
washed over him as he entered. Silence did not greet him, though a temporary
drop in the noise level did. The usuals regarded him and his new robes, then
went on with whatever they had been shouting about before.
    He plopped down into a chair at a table near the minimal
fire.
    “You steal that robe, initiate?” a regular called to him.
    “Earned it.” His grin shut the man up.
    “Fancy robes,” said Erilyn, the barmaid.
    He