The Queen of Swords Read Online Free PDF Page A

I have never seen another like it in all my travels,” Jhary agreed. “It is a friendly creature and has often aided me. Sometimes our ways part and I do not see it for an age or two, but we are often together and he always remembers me. I call him Whiskers. Not an original name, I fear, but he seems to like it well enough. I think he will help us now.”
    “How can he help us?” Corum stared at the winged cat.
    “Why, my friends, he can fly to Lyr’s Court and witness what takes place there. Then he can return with his news to us!”
    “He can speak?”
    “Only to me—and even that is not speaking as such. Would you have me send him there?”
    Corum was completely taken aback. He was forced to smile. “Why not?”
    “Then Whiskers and I will go up to your battlements, with your permission, and I will instruct him what to do.”
    In silence the three watched Jhary adjust his hat on his head, pick up his cat, bow to them and mount the stairs that would take him to the battlements.
    “I feel as if I dream,” said Beldan when Jhary had disappeared.
    “You do,” said Corum. “A fresh dream is just beginning. Let us hope we survive it…”

2
THE GATHERING AT KALENWYR
    T HE LITTLE WINGED cat flew swiftly eastward through the night and came at last to gloomy Kalenwyr.
    The smoke of a thousand guttering brands rose up from Kalenwyr and seemed to smear out the light of the moon. Square blocks of dark granite made up the houses and the castles and nowhere was there a curve or a soft line. Dominating the rest of the city was the brooding pile of King Lyr-a-Brode and around its black battlements flickered oddly coloured lights and there was a rumbling like thunder, though no clouds filled the night sky.
    Towards this pile now flew the little cat, alighting on a tower of harsh angles and folding its wings. It turned its large, green eyes this way and that, as if deciding which way it would enter the castle.
    The cat’s fur prickled, the long whiskers for which it had been named twitched, the tail went stiff. The cat had become aware not only of sorcery and the presence of supernatural creatures in the castle, but of a particular creature which it hated more than all the rest. Its progress down the side of the tower became even more cautious. It reached a slotted window and squeezed in. It was in a darkened, circular room. An open door revealed steps winding down the inside of the tower. Tensely the cat made its way down the steps. There were plenty of shadows in which to hide, for Castle Kalenwyr was a shadowy place.
    At last the cat saw brandlight burning ahead and it paused, looking warily around the door frame. The brands illuminated a long, narrow passage and at the end of the passage were the sounds of many voices, the clatter of arms and of wine-cups. The cat spread its wings and flew into the shadows of the roof, finding a long, blackened beam down which it could walk. The beam passed through the wall with a little room to spare and the cat squeezed through to find itself looking down at a huge gathering of Mabden. It walked further along the beam and then settled itself to watch the proceedings.
    * * *
    In the centre of Castle Kalenwyr’s Great Hall was a dais carved from a single block of unpolished obsidian and upon this dais was a throne of granite studded with quartz. Some attempt had been made to carve gargoyles upon the stone, but the workmanship was crude and unfinished. Nonetheless, the half-shapes carved there were more sinister than if they had been fully realized.
    Seated upon this throne were three people. On each asymmetrical arm sat a naked girl, with flesh tattooed in obscene designs. Each girl held a jug with which she replenished the wine-cup of the man who sat on the throne itself. This man was big—more than seven feet tall—and a crown of pale iron was upon his matted hair. The hair was long, with short plaits clustered over the forehead. It had been yellow but was now streaked with white