Read Online A Flame in Hali by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

shouted. “Work and justice!”
    “I am very sorry for you all,” the boy said, clearly shaken, “but it wasn’t our fault—”
    “Your kind sent the aircars that dropped it!” someone behind the crippled farmer cried.
    “Aye, and the root blight what ruined two years’ wheat crops till we had nothing left to plant!” came another voice. More joined him as they surged forward, shoving hard against the City Guards. The incipient electrical tension of the day fueled their anger.
    The Comyn women and children hurried away, their faces white. The City Guards beat back anyone who tried to follow.
    Eduin smiled grimly. The legacy of Carolin’s predecessor, the brutal Rakhal Hastur, lay all about them: injustice, hunger, disease, the ravages of terrible laran- powered weapons.
    The time of the Hundred Kingdoms was coming to an end, if not in this generation, then surely in the next. Even a fool could see that. These wars were the dying spasms of an age. Even now, a few powerful families extended their dominion over weaker client kingdoms.
    King Carolin of Hastur had become foremost among them. He might have been a good man once, but the world, with all the allure of power, now had him in its grip.
    Soon there would be no one to stop him.
    His father’s words echoed in his memory: Varzil Ridenow is the key. Without his counsel, Hastur will fall . . .
    The crippled farmer stood, watching where the rich lords had passed. His chest heaved with emotion, his face flushed. Desperation radiated from his twisted body like heat from a furnace. Some of the crowd dispersed, but a number of them, particularly the men, remained. They seemed to be drawn to his intensity, as if he had been telling their stories as well as his own.
    An idea formed in Eduin’s mind. Gesturing to Saravio to follow, he strode toward the crippled farmer.
    “That was courageous of you to speak so to a Comyn lord,” he said, pitching his voice so that all around could hear him.
    The farmer narrowed his eyes. Adrenaline and color drained from his features. His one good shoulder hunched, as if he would slink away.
    Eduin restrained him with a gentle touch on the arm. “It is a black day for all of us when a man cannot speak the truth or demand justice.”
    “Whether he will receive or not it is another matter,” Saravio added.
    Eduin stepped into the open area in the center of the street. With a simple twist of the ambient psychic energy, he cast a glamour about himself, so that he drew all eyes to him. He could speak in a whisper, and every word would be remembered.
    “Whether or not he will take what is his due is yet another,” Eduin said. The men around him were as clear to his laran as if they had shouted their feelings aloud. Anger and curiosity surged above their ingrained fear.
    The farmer rubbed his withered shoulder with his good hand, as if measuring his own human power against the sorcery that could create such a weapon as clingfire .
    “What’s the use? What can any of us do against the mighty lords? And what will befall my children if I’m arrested, without even the few poor reis I now earn?”
    One of the men muttered, “What are we to do? They feast while our children starve.” Around him, the other men and women nodded. Their eyes glowed with eagerness.
    “And why is that?” Eduin asked. “What gives them the right to take the best of everything for themselves? Are they gods, to decide who shall live and who shall die? Do they burn with the clingfire they command?”
    “No!” a woman with a pock-marked face cried. “ We starve! We burn!” Her simmering anger flared suddenly.
    “I’ll hear no more of this treason,” a grizzled fellow with one eye patched said, drawing back. Although his cloak was as dirty and ragged as any, he held himself like a soldier. “I fought for King Carolin, who brought an end to Rakhal’s reign of terror. Now he and Varzil, him they call the Good, they’ve got this Compact, they say, that will