The Phoenix Guards Read Online Free PDF Page A

my lord.”
    “Well, tell me what it is.”
    “You said that we serve the Emperor.”
    “And if I did?”
    “We do not.”
    “We do not?”
    “No.”
    “But, then—”
    “Rather, we serve the Empire. The distinction is small, but, you perceive, important.”
    Hrivaan frowned, as if this method of thinking were new to him, but Nylissit laughed. “Well spoken, good Lyorn. You reason like an Athyra, yet speak like a Dragon, straight to the target, all the more appropriate as we now begin the reign precisely between those two Houses.”
    Aerich bowed his head to acknowledge the compliment. “Spoken,” he said, “like an Issola.” If Khaavren noticed the hint of irony in this speech, it was only because he was looking for it, and had come to know the Lyorn’s moods rather well for the short time they had known each other.
    A certain amount of time elapsed then in which no one spoke. During this interval, Khaavren happened to notice Tazendra who, after the change in seating which followed the meal, was sitting next to the window, as well as next to Khaavren, who can thus be seen to have been in the middle, well situated to observe the Dzur, who was, in turn, well situated to observe the fields and meadows of Sorannah slowly pass by. After this interval, Khaavren remarked, “My good Tazendra, I believe I heard you sigh.”
    “Well, and if I did?”
    “It is, if I am not mistaken, the third time you have done so in these last few minutes.”
    “Perhaps it is.”
    “Tell me, then, for I am curious, why you are sighing.”
    “It is only that this is the first time I have left my home, good Khaavren, and I believe that I shall miss the spinetrees, and the song of the follow-me, and the candlebud, which grows nowhere else.”
    During this speech, with which Khaavren was in full sympathy, as similar thoughts had crossed his mind several times since he’d left home, he happened to notice that Nylissit gave a small start, as if pricked by a needle carelessly left by a handmaid, and, at the same time, Hrivaan had suddenly placed his hand against his chest, as if to assure himself that it remained adjoining to his shoulders, or, thought the Tiassa, as if to assure himself that something concealed within his cloak was still in its place. Khaavren pretended not to have noticed, however, and contented himself with murmuring sympathetically to Tazendra.
    He considered the words which had caused the simultaneous reaction in his fellow-travelers, and decided that it was upon the mention of the word “candlebud” that the reaction had occurred. Now Khaavren was also from this general region, which was the only area where candlebud could then be found; he therefore turned at once to the two of them and said, “Have you, perchance, ever seen the candlebud? It is a small flower, yet remarkable in its own way.”
    “Why, no,” said Nylissit coolly. “I have never seen one.”
    “It grows only on the eastern slope of a hill or valley,” said Khaavren, watching them carefully. “And always near running water, though never too near. The stalk is pale green, and rises to the height of a man’s knee. In the fall each plant produces small, purple berries, tart and full of juice. Yet what is remarkable, my friends, is the color. For at the top of each
plant, in the early spring, is a small bud that is bright yellow in the morning, and changes, as the day grows older, to orange, and at last to a shining red. But that is not all, for when darkness is full, the bud gives off a light of its own, so that there are whole valleys that shimmer in the night, and are so well lighted one can find the small paths left by the antelope and the tsalmoth. It is a shame that we have no more time here, for they are just now in bloom.”
    “A most remarkable flower it must be,” said Hrivaan. “But come, it can not be the only unusual feature of this region. What else grows or lives here that is worthy of mention?”
    This led them off to a