Under A Velvet Cloak Read Online Free PDF Page A

approached a fork in the trail. Morely took the left one, and Kerena accompanied him. He was the one who knew the way, as this was his familiar route.
    Jolie came alert. Something was wrong!
    In a moment she realized what it was. The realities were diverging. Her own track was no longer congruent with this track; there was a small but definite difference.
    In Jolie’s realm, Morely and Kerena took the right fork. Both trails led to the next village, in a similar difference. Why should this matter? Jolie didn’t know, but knew that it had to be corrected. She had to keep the two tracks aligned.
    She jumped back to the time just before the fork. She put a thought into Kerena’s mind, emulating her Seeing ability so as to conceal it’s true source.
Take the right fork.
    Morely started left. “This way,” Kerena said.
    “But I took that last time. I like to vary the route in inconsequential ways.”
    “But it’s new to me,” Kerena said firmly. “Humor me.”
    He shrugged and did so. After all, they were lovers, inclining him to cater to her whim. They took the right fork. The tracks converged. Jolie breathed a ghostly sign of relief.
    In time, well supplied with money, they came to Morely’s private residence. Here he had something no one else was equipped to understand: a mounted tube with glass at either end. When Kerena looked in the small end, she saw the night sky in greater detail than was possible with the naked eye. This was Morely’s greatest secret: a way to look more thoroughly at the stars. She promised not to tell, for ignorant villagers were superstitious about what they did not understand, and might destroy it if they learned of it.
    The man’s an early astronomer!
    It was a discipline the girl eagerly embraced. Soon she was spending as much time looking at the stars as he was. This, too, pleased him. She was an apt match for him.
    Kerena occasionally went to the village to purchase staples; this was part of her duty as apprentice and maidservant. The villagers were readily able to accept her presence, and surely assumed she was being sexually used. Why else would a man keep a pretty girl servant? That didn’t matter; she was as much user as used.
    One day she was late returning, because it had taken unwonted time for a farmer to fetch the grain she needed. It was dark as she made her way back, but she was confident she could handle it. The night was not her enemy; it was her friend. If anyone should follow her, she could readily elude him in the darkness. Sometimes village louts tried; that was a penalty of beauty. She had a knife, and Morely had made sure she knew how to use it, but had also impressed on her that avoidance was far superior. Knowledge, confidence, and darkness were all she needed. She could slip silently into shadow, like a forest sylph.
    She came into sight of the house. There was no light, which was odd; normally he left a lamp in the window, a signal that he was waiting for her return. Morely himself was often out peering through his star-tube, especially on a clear moonless night. The stars were endlessly fascinating; she shared his constant amazement.
    She went to the house, found the lamp, and lit it from a fireplace ember. “Morely?” she inquired, concerned that he might have overslept or suffered some accident. But he was not in the house.
    I
have a bad feeling about this.
    She took the lamp and looked outside. She made a search pattern, carefully spiraling outward from the house. Such efficiency was typical; she had learned it from Morely and took pride in it. He had to be somewhere; she would find him.
    She did not. Instead she found the velvet cloak, with its starry pattern, lying on the ground. Blood spattered it.
    She stifled a scream of horror. Something dreadful had happened to Morely.

Chapter 2 Lady of the Evening

    Kerena wasted little time weeping. She analyzed the situation and planned her approach, exactly as she had been taught to do in any emergency. Morely