The Worthing Saga Read Online Free PDF

he walked to where Lared had written the sign of it upon the ground, and scraped the mark away with his foot.
    Jason laughed, and Justice sighed, and Lared spoke without waiting for them to give him words. “Father, I found the name Worthing in the old cleric's book. It's just the name of a world.”
    Father slapped Lared sharply on the face. “There is a time and place for uttering the name, and that is not here.”
    Lared could not help but cry out from the pain—he had no strategies for coping with this unhabitual distress. It was too cruel, that with the coming of pain the greatest danger of it should be, not from fire or water or beast, but from Father. So even after the first impact of the pain wore off, Lared could not keep himself from whimpering like a bee-stung dog.
    Suddenly Jason slapped the table and jumped to his feet. Justice tried to hold him back, but he stammered out a few words that they could understand. “Name of my,” he said. “Name this mying be.”
    Father squinted, as if seeing better would help him understand the twisted words. Lared translated for him. “I think he means that his name is—is the name.”
    Jason nodded.
    “I thought you said your name was Jason.”
    “Name of my is Jason Worthing.”
    “My name is Jason Worthing,” prompted Lared.
    The moment Lared uttered Worthing , Father's hand snaked out to slap him again. But Jason was quicker, and caught the blacksmith's hand in mid-act.
    “There's no man in Flat Harbor,” said Father, “who dares to match strength with me.”
    Jason only smiled.
    Father tried to move his hand again, but Jason tightened his fingers almost imperceptibly, and Father cried out in pain.
    Justice too cried out as if the pain had touched her. The two of them babbled in angry language as Father held his wrist, gasping. When Father could speak again, he ignored them, too.
    “I don't need them as guests, and I don't need you getting into forbidden things. They're going, and you won't have another thing to do with them until they're gone.”
    Jason and Justice left off their argument and heard the end of his speech. As if to stop the blacksmith, Justice took from her clothing a thin bar of pure gold; she bent it to show its softness.
    Father reached for the gold and took it. Between two fingers he folded the bar fiat, and with two hands folded it again, and tossed it against the front door. “This is my house, and this is my son, and we have no need of you.”
    Then Father led Lared from the room, unfed and unhappy, to the forge where the fire already was growing hot.
    Lared worked there all morning, hungry and angry, but not daring to do anything but what his father asked. They both knew that Lared hated the work at the forge, that he had no desire at all to learn the secrets of smithing. He did what he had to, just the way he bore his share in the field and no more. Usually that was enough for Father, but not today.
    “There are things you'll learn from me,” Father shouted above the roar of the flames. “There are things no half-witted strangers are going to teach you!”
    They aren't half-witted, Lared said silently. Unlike Justice, however, when he held his tongue his words went unremarked. It was one of the things he did best, holding his tongue.
    “You're no good at smithing, I know that, you've got weak arms like your mother's father, narrow, shoulders. I haven't pushed you, have I?”
    Lared shook his head.
    “Pump harder.”
    Lared bore down on the bellows, pumped faster even though his back ached.
    “And in the fields, you're a decent hand, and if you aren't big enough yet fora man's load, you're good at mushrooms and herbs and I won't even be ashamed of you if you end up a swine herd. God help me, I'll even bear having my son be the goose boy.”
    “I'll be no goose boy, Father.” Father often made things out worse than they really were, for effect.
    “Better goose boy than a clerk! There's no work for a clerk in Flat Harbor, no need