The Rose of Sarifal Read Online Free PDF Page A

him, her lips close to his own, her cool breath on his face. “Ten years ago, I had a sister, who was taken from me. A half sister. My mother’s daughter, not my father’s. She was … younger. Much, much younger even than my own son.
    “You know,” she said, “that things are different for us. You humans can have many children in your tiny lives. An eladrin woman—one, perhaps twopregnancies, each one lasting several years. We give birth in pain, you understand. We live a long time, and because of it, it is the youngest who inherits. Always the youngest. My sister was nine years old when she disappeared.”
    “Where did she go?”
    The queen shrugged. “It was a mystery. A traitor stole her from her bedchamber in the high citadel. Suborned six members of my dragonborn guards. They took her to Crane Point on the lake, that much is known. There was a plot to kidnap her and take her to the castle of the Daressins on Snowdown—she did not arrive. Though we do not visit these places, still we have eyes and ears. A hippogriff snatched her from the lakeshore—we saw it. After that, nothing. Except a rider washed up on the west coast not far from here, at the entrance of the firth. A rider’s corpse, burned from the fire. This was ten years ago.”
    “Maybe she drowned,” Lukas said. “I’m sorry.”
    “Are you? But you’re not listening. Snowdown is to the east.”
    She turned abruptly, and he and the gnome had to hurry to catch up. “Let me show you something.”
    At the back of the gallery was a spiral stair, its stone steps slippery, choked with filth. Barefoot, the queen climbed down it, unconcerned. The room below was lit with a charcoal brazier, and the air was foul. Three large prison cells, lined with iron bars, stood in a row.
    The queen smiled. “There, you see?” she said to Suka, indicating the left-hand cell. “One of your ancientmasters from the Underdark.” In fact much of the cell’s space was occupied by a single bloated body, a purplish-gray, yellow-haired, hump-backed giantess with an iron mask locked over her head and half her face, to occlude her evil eye. She stank.
    The middle cell stood open. “Please, my dear,” indicated the queen. Suka stepped over to it and peered in.
    On the inside the cells were separated from each other, again, with rows of iron bars. “Do you like it?” asked the queen. “It won’t be for long. Or that depends on Captain Lukas, I suppose.”
    Inquisitive as a mouse, Suka darted inside and made a circuit of the bars. Inside the left-hand cell, the fomorian turned her heavy head, and Suka wrinkled up her nose, then caressed the ring in her left nostril, as if by doing so she could affect the smell.
    “Of course no weapons,” said the queen. “And captain, a sense of urgency. Every five days we will remove one of the bars between her and that.” She nodded toward the giant. “And perhaps one along the other side.”
    A jailer waddled forward out of the shadows, a fat, flabby, bearded man with a ring of keys. Lukas nodded, and the gnome unstrapped her crossbow, unbuckled her short sword. “What will you feed her?” he asked.
    The queen laughed. “Oh, chicken and wine. Snails in honey sauce. She’s not a prisoner, after all. Rather a pledge, until you bring back what I’m asking you.”
    “Which is?”
    For an answer, she waved her hand to the last cage. In the dim light Lukas could see a figure huddled upagainst the back of the wall. The queen snapped her fingers, and the jailer held out a glass ball, oval in shape, which she grasped in her left hand. Soon, a milky light spread from her fist, the rays jutting out between her fingers. “Look,” she said.
    She thrust her hand between the bars. In the new light Lukas saw a naked creature lying motionless on its side. Its eyes were closed.
    Its form was roughly that of a human woman, with big shoulders and hips, fat breasts and a wide belly. She was covered in hair, thin and pale along her front,