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

end these terrible wars forever. Let honest soldiers fight as they can, and leave the wizards to their own.”
    “Do you really believe that the high lords will give up their best weapons?” the woman rounded on him. “That they care a filthy reis about the likes of us?”
    “Hold your tongue, woman,” the grizzled man rumbled, gesturing toward Saravio and Eduin. “The King’s worth a hundred of the likes of them, and if he says he will bring peace to all these lands, that’s what I’ll hold to.”
    “Let us speak more of this,” Eduin said urgently. “But not here in the open, for their spies are everywhere. Meet us tonight in a safe place—the inn called The White Feather.”
    “Aye, we know the place,” one of the other men, a farmer by his clothing, said. “The folk there are honest enough, or as much as any can be in these times.”
    Quickly, Eduin set a time. He scanned the dispersing group with his mind. Hope flared in them, an excitement beyond what he’d expected. Someone had gently fanned the embers of resentment into exhilaration.
    Saravio.
    The red-haired man stood with unfocused eyes. Eduin picked up the ripple of laran power emanating from his mind, and was monitor enough to sense the almost euphoric response in the crowd.
    Eduin spoke to Saravio several times before the other man seemed to hear him. Saravio blinked, as if rousing from a sleep, and showed no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.
    “We must make preparations at The White Feather,” Eduin said. “The innkeeper’s wife will surely remember you with favor.”
    “How could she not?” Saravio said as they made their way back through the mazework of narrow streets. “Yet, I do not see what purpose a secret meeting will serve. These are poor, ignorant folk. Useless.”
    “Useless to the great lords in their palaces, certainly. Perhaps even to you or me,” Eduin paused for dramatic effect. “But not to Naotalba.”
    As he’d expected, Saravio jerked alert at the name.
    Eduin rushed on. “She brought me to you, didn’t she? Just as she has now brought these men—this army.”
    “Naotalba’s army? But, Eduin—these are not soldiers. They dress in rags. They have no weapons, no training. What could they possibly do?”
    “That is the wrong question, my friend. It is rather what Naotalba can do with them. Do you doubt her power?”
    They turned down the street, slightly broader than the rest, which would bring them to The White Feather. Saravio tripped on a cobblestone that had been turned on its end in the muck, jutting upward. Eduin caught his elbow, steadying him.
    “I am her servant, always,” Saravio declared. “It is not for me to question her ways.”
    “It is glorious to walk in the path of Naotalba,” Eduin intoned. He despised himself for pretending a devotion he did not feel, to feed Saravio’s delusions.
    Once, Eduin had prayed to Zandru, Lord of the Seven Frozen Hells. Most Comyn honored Aldones, Lord of Light, fair Evanda, or the Dark Lady, Avarra. What did it matter which one he invoked if the cause was right? He remembered the woman of Saravio’s vision and shivered inwardly. She could be dark or light, hope or despair, depending upon which aspect of the myth he drew upon. She was imaginary, a dream image, nothing more. Surely he need not fear such a thing. . . .
    At the mention of Naotalba, Eduin felt an answering ripple of psychic energy from Saravio. For a moment, he allowed himself to enjoy it. It would be a simple enough thing to block the sendings, to keep himself unaffected while those around them felt whatever Saravio sent them. Pleasure . . . pain . . . elation . . . fury . . .
    “Naotalba’s army,” Saravio murmured. He halted at the threshold of the inn and bent his head reverently. “Here it begins.”
    Naotalba’s army, Eduin repeated to himself. A few desperate refugees tonight, perhaps, but tomorrow, their numbers would swell. An army, indeed. One to topple even the