The Stone Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

Arcimboldo. “I’ve spoken with her. She now knows what power she will have at her command in time. And I believe she has accepted it.”
    “Did she have a choice?”
    “Lord Light gives none of us a choice. Not me, either. Had I not taken his gold, the workshop would have closed long ago. He’s bought more magic mirrors than anyone else since the Guild expelled me. Without him I’d have had to send all my apprentices back to the orphanages. Merle and Junipa wouldn’t even have come here.” The little old man shook his head sadly. “Serafin, believe me, myown fate is not the issue here at all. But the children … I couldn’t allow that.”
    “Does Junipa know where she’s going to go?”
    “She suspects there’s more behind it. Even that she won’t be staying here with us for long. But she knows nothing of Talamar and Lord Light. Not yet.”
    “But that can’t be allowed to happen!” Serafin exclaimed, almost overturning his tea. “I mean, we simply can’t allow her to … to go to Hell. In the truest sense of the word.”
    To that Arcimboldo had said nothing, and now Serafin was sitting here on the canal and looking for a solution, for some sort of way out.
    If Venice had been a free city and there had been no Egyptians threatening it, perhaps he might have been able to flee with Junipa. He’d once been one of the most skillful master thieves in Venice, of whose existence most of the city’s citizens had no inkling at all. But the Empire’s siege ring enclosed them on all sides, a hangman’s noose of galleys, sunbarks, and umpteen thousand soldiers. There was no way out of the city, and to hide from Hell
and
the Egyptians somewhere in the alleys was a futile undertaking. Sooner or later they’d find them.
    If Merle were still in Venice, together they might perhaps have found a solution. But with his own eyes he’d seen her fly over the Piazza San Marco on the back of a stone lion—over the lagoon, out of the city. And forreasons he didn’t know himself, he doubted that Merle would be back soon enough—if ever—to save Junipa from her fate.
    Where was Merle? Where had the lion taken her? And what had become of the Flowing Queen?
    The reflection of the other world faded as a clock in a nearby church tower struck one, followed by quite a few others. The hour after midnight was past, and with it the lighted windows on the water vanished abruptly. Now the waves reflected the dark housefronts only very vaguely, unlit, a reflection of the reality.
    Serafin sighed softly, stood up—and suddenly bent forward again. There was something in the water, a movement. He’d seen it clearly. Not a reflection, from this or any other world. Perhaps a mermaid? Or a big fish?
    Serafin saw a second movement, and this time it was easier to follow it with his eyes. A black silhouette glided through the canal, and now he discovered a third. Each was about fifteen feet long. No, fish were certainly not
that
big, even if these were shaped something like sharks. They came to a point in front, but the width was the same along the rest of their length, like a thick tree trunk. Serafin saw no fins, either, as far as he could make out in the dark water.
    The last silhouette slid along just under the surface, not so deep as the others, and now the moonlight broke over its surface. No doubt about it—metal! With that, therewas really no more doubt about where they came from. Only magic could move objects of iron or steel through the water like feathers. Egyptian magic!
    Serafin ran. The surrounding houses came right down to the water, so he couldn’t run directly along the canal. He had to take a roundabout way to follow the three vehicles. He quickly ran back through the blind alley, went around several corners, and finally came to a piazza that he knew only too well. Forty steps away from him, a little bridge led over the canal into which he’d just scattered his supper. In a narrow house on the left, he and Merle had met