The Stair Of Time (Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

sitting no more than five feet from me, do you feel the need to magnify your voice?  You could move your lips, at least.  I mean, it’s just me and…I’m right here.  What ’d ya expect me to do?  Say oooh, ahhhh, look everyone—oh I mean just Abolecious—it’s the great and powerful Ashel, the mightiest ventriloquist the world has ever known?”
    “ You’ve been Gaven’s protégé too long, Andaris.  It’s clearly beginning to rot your mind, what little you had, that is, filling the subsequent void with irreverence.  Ever the last refuge of the idiot.”
    Andaris stepped to the edge of the desk , hands and teeth clenched, anger making him reckless.  “You’re worse than before!” he shouted.  “And even then you were insufferably arrogant at times.  I thought you had gained some wisdom after your death, but I guess you were just temporarily humbled.  And now that you have all this power and influence, you’re turning into a monster!”
    Andaris knew that Ashel could crush him with a thought, but also knew that this had to be said.  And if those closest to him wouldn’t do it, “closest” being a relative term, then who would?  His heart hammered against his ribs as he awaited a response, a staccato beat that suggested it might leap from his chest at any moment in search of more hospitable environs.
    O nce again the wizard was silent, unmoving, sitting there as if in idle contemplation, expression infuriatingly unruffled by his friend’s tirade—a mannequin with bulging white eyes and flowing black robes.
    S eething with something akin to righteous indignation, Andaris reached out and grabbed Ashel’s right arm.  Instead of flesh and bone, however, his hand made contact with…nothing.  In fact, it passed straight through.  There was a shimmer, and then the image appeared solid again, its look of idle contemplation unchanged.  Andaris recoiled, and from all around heard low, satisfied laughter, low and bordering on sinister.
    “In case yo u haven’t pieced it together, my brash young friend, I am not here.  What you see before you is merely a cleverly devised representation.  In actuality, I am in a place that I doubt you could even begin to fathom.  Indeed, you’re not even where you think you are.”
    Andaris certainly didn’t like the sound of that.  “What do you mean, I’m not where I think I am?” he demanded.
    “This tower is much more than your senses tell you.  It has many levels, each housing wonders beyond your wildest imaginings.  One day, perhaps one day soon, I’ll show you and Gaven around.  No mere description, regardless how eloquent, can do it justice.  Suffice it to say, it is far more than the sum of its parts.”
    “And what exactly does that mean, Your Worship?”
    “I forgive you your ignorance, for though you have eyes, you cannot see.  In partial a nswer to your question, Andaris, this tower is the center link in a great, unbroken chain—a fulcrum in space-time.  There are countless other links in this chain, countless other towers, reaching out before and behind, all the same, all different, each existing in a slightly to radically altered reality from our own, each a version of the same master reality.”
    “So, you’re saying that—”
    “Yes!” exclaimed Ashel.  “Of course!  I should think that would be obvious even to you.  I can jump from tower to tower if and when I please, even skipping over certain links when the chain curves, when it slithers like a snake through tall grass—a kind of cosmic leapfrog if you will.  That is how I found Abolecious.  You would be surprised how close to our reality his world spins.  There are others that are far stranger, home to creatures that make him seem altogether humdrum.  In some of these realities, we are having the same, or at least very similar, conversation.  Although in most you would not recognize yourself, nor want to.
    Isn’t it wondrous, Andaris!  It is a pity that you