The Right Hand of God Read Online Free PDF Page B

offend the even vaster power held within the Jugom Ark. Whatever the reason, the Wodhaitic Sea declined to trouble the fragile canoe, preserving its inscrutable serenity, venting its puissance on some far-distant shore.
    Little talk disturbed the silence on the boat. While the pilot at least had a rudimentary grasp of the common tongue, and Leith had much that was needful to discuss with Maendraga, the overwhelming majesty of the sea kept them quiet, leaving the youth from Loulea to deal with the poignancy of his memories. His birthday had passed him by somewhere on the long journey. He had lost track of the days somewhere south of Instruere, probably in Hinepukohurangi, the land of Mist, or perhaps in the Valley of a Thousand Fires. Though now seventeen, of an age where boys in his home country of Firanes became men, left their parents' house and 'took to the land', he was by no means ready to bear the burdens the peril of Faltha thrust upon him. By intuition -Leith was still reluctant to put a name to his inner voice -
    he had found and taken hold of the Jugom Ark, when no one else dared to touch its flaming shaft. Right then, in Joram Basin high above Kantara, the quest was still on track, and its fulfilment lay burning in Leith's hands.
    Then the Sentinels jerked into life. Leith's heart quailed at the memory. The Arkhos of Nemohaim pursued the Five of the Hand, climbing up to the sacred Joram Basin, and something in the magic of the place, left there by Bewray himself, set the mountains shaking when the feet of traitors
    desecrated the holy site. Though he had since spent much time reflecting on those fraught hours, Leith could still make no sense of the confusion that struck them all, scattered them all, and claimed lives. The shriek of the Instruian archivist as he fell into the chasm bound itself into his dreams. And, when the mountains finally stopped their shaking, he had lost his companions. The Arkhimm was no more. All that remained was the Jugom Ark.
    After searching fruitlessly for the rest of the Arkhimm, Leith abandoned that high and holy place and, with Maendraga, the Guardian of the Arrow, made his way sorrow-fully to Bewray, capital of Nemohaim. There, with the aid of the Arrow, he performed a miraculous healing, and gained the friendship and assistance of Geinor the counsellor and his son Graig, making an enemy of the king in the process. The healing was still a difficult knot in his memory, deliberately left unexamined for fear of what he might find. Had it been the power of the Arrow? Or was he, Leith, like his brother, able to tap into (enhance, Hal called it) healing and other magical powers? Or was this all the work of the Most High, and were Leith and his brother - were they all - merely pawns? Of any possibility, that was the one Leith feared: that nothing he did, no risk he took, really mattered; that some divine protection ensured success by removing freedom of choice; that, like Hal, he was incapable of making a mistake, or at least admitting it. He wanted, to be more than one of the stars fixed in the sky, forever set to follow a predetermined course around the locus of the plans of the Most High.
    And now he was here, out in the wide Wodhaitic Sea, sailing towards Instruere and whatever was to come. Here with Maendraga the magician, the Guardian of the Arrow, with Geinor and Graig of Nemohaim, and with a Pei-ratin
    pilot and a crew who could not decide what to make of him. Here with the Jugom Ark, a mind full of doubts, a few haggard memories and the tattered remnants of a quest.
    The last few miles of the journey up the Aleinus River were made against the wind and the tide, so Leith and Maendraga joined the others in paddling with those strange, teardrop-shaped oars the Aslamen used. Ahead of them Instruere rose from a low bank of fog, or perhaps a morning haze; certainly the air felt heavy, making it difficult to see any real distance even though the sun beat down on them and the day was