Tides of Darkness Read Online Free PDF

histories, commentaries on the people of Gates; there were meetings, conversations, suggestions that there might be embassies and alliances. But since my great-grandfather’s time, there’s been no mention of any such thing. It’s all empty worlds and silent shores. There has to be a reason. What if this is it? They’ve withdrawn or been driven back from the Gates. Something is stirring there, something enormous. Haven’t you felt it? It comes in the hour before dawn, or in the drowsy center of
the afternoon, when we’re least on guard. It feels like a storm coming.”
    They were silent. She looked from face to face. They were all respectful, but there was no spark of recognition in them. They had not sensed what she had sensed.
    They were good men and women, and strong mages. But she would have given much just then to speak with one who understood the deeper matters.
    The mages of Gates knew only what they had seen in living memory: empty worlds, open Gates, freedom to pass where they would—within the laws and the bindings, which none of them thought to question.
    But there was one who remembered the times before, when the Guild of Mages ruled the Gates, and Gate-mages were unknown in the world. Merian excused herself as soon as she respectably could, and took refuge in her garden, sitting by the pool that was always still even when the wind blew strong. It reflected starlight at midday and the moons’ light at night, whether the moons were in the sky or no.
    He was sitting between the moons, wearing the face he wore in dreams: much the same as the one he wore awake, black eagle with lion-eyes. They were lambent gold, those eyes; they smiled at her.
    â€œGreat-grandfather,” she said.
    â€œYoungling,” said the emperor. “You’re troubled tonight.”
    He was always direct. It had served him ill in dealing with the more subtle of his subjects, but Merian found it restful, in its way. “Is he still with you?” she asked. She had not meant to say it, but it escaped before she could catch it.
    â€œHe’s your trouble?” Estarion asked, though not quite as if he believed it.
    She shook off folly—both his and hers. “He troubles me, but not in this.”
    â€œHe should,” said Estarion. “He’s a living Gate.”
    â€œSo I gather,” she said.
    â€œDid you also gather that he’s not the idiot he pretends to be?”

    â€œI did hope that there was more to him than he was letting us see,” she said.
    â€œThere is a great deal more,” said Estarion, “though he might not thank us for perceiving it. I was a considerable shock to him, but he’s recovered since; he’s decided that I must be at least a fraction senile, since I prefer a shepherd’s cot to the delights of my own cities.”
    â€œI thought so once,” she said, “but not of late. Were mages as blind when you were young, as they are now?”
    â€œIf anything, they were blinder.” He raised himself up out of the pool, and stood dripping moonlight. “What are they not seeing now?”
    â€œGates,” she answered him. “The worlds weren’t always empty. Were they?”
    â€œAh,” he said. “So you’ve noticed that, have you? I wondered if anyone would. No, when I was as young as this spoiled child you’ve saddled me with, we all knew that the worlds were populated, though there was considerable debate as to whether any of that populace were mages. None of them traveled as we traveled, that we ever knew. None came into this world. And none ever spoke to us or acknowledged us. But the oldest mages, who had the tales from long before, said that there was a time when the Gates saw a great deal of travel, and mages were aware of presences on the worldroads, going their incomprehensible ways.”
    â€œBut none of them came into this world, or spoke to anyone from it.”
    â€œNot