Read Online Broken Crescent by S. Andrew Swann - Free Book Online

to sleep. Ravig had told him things that disturbed him greatly. The College itself seemed worried. In what Ravig had said there were hints that the scholars weren’t as sanguine as they would like to appear. Ehrid had some cause to believe that what the College might be worried about was not an angel striding from the mythic shadow, but something closer to Ehrid’s mundane reality.
    “What words have you for me?” came a familiar voice from behind him.
    Ehrid turned to face the acolyte with the plain mask. He looked into the featureless white face, attempting to discern something beyond the black eyeholes that were the only break in its surface. This anonymous scholar from the College of Man had come to him with the sanction of the Monarch himself. However, Ehrid now wondered if it was the plots germinating behind that white mask that had the College nervous.
    Did they know how close they were to a contest for their power?
    “I have many words,” Ehrid spoke finally. “I would like some in return.”
    “I serve at the Armsmaster’s pleasure.” There was an irritating tinge of amusement in the way he said it. Ehrid ignored it.
    “What is this pale creature to the College?”
    “A stranger. A trespasser from beyond the realm of our ken. Something to be kept from public knowledge and examination. Something to be interrogated and destroyed before any harm is done.”
    “There is more.”
    “There is always more.”
    “The College acts in a manner to suggest that it fears something. Is it this creature, or do they intuit your machinations?”
    The acolyte laughed.
    “I do not share your amusement.”
    A bow toward Ehrid. “Forgive me. You have not lived in the College, so you do not know its mind. Suffice it to say that the only emotion permitted by doctrine is fear. The College itself is fear personified, and views plots and omens in the shapes of clouds and the entrails of slain ghadi.”
    Ehrid frowned. “The Venrable Master Scholar himself displayed nervousness and uncertainty enough for my Armsman Ravig to comment on it. Whatever state of mind is normal within the College, it is not normal for them to allow outsiders to see it.”
    “A different thing, I am sure. However, what Armsman Ravig might have seen was none of my doing, to answer your question. The distress they display is solely of their own making.”
    “Meaning the stranger?”
    “Meaning what they have convinced themselves the stranger might be.”
    “What then?”
    “Have you read the legends of the Angel of Death?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

    A FTER THE FIRST hour, Nate’s hands were too sore to pound on the door. After the third hour, his voice died. After the fifth hour, fatigue won out and he had to sit down.
    Nate paced around, probing the ground with his feet, kicking aside things that felt too squishy. He sat down, back to the wall, wondering if he had gone completely insane.
    The complete darkness made it too easy to imagine that he had never left the blackout he had fallen into, running down the halls of Case. The thought was almost comforting, until he realized that he hadn’t been wearing lice-infested burlap then, and that darkness didn’t smell like mold and shit.
    Perhaps worst of all right now was the fact that he had beaten his hands too sore to scratch himself.
    A masochistic voice in his brain started a list of things that he would do just about anything for now. A ticket home was top on the list, even if it was to a life sentence in a Federal Supermax prison. Food was high on the list, along with some water. He would kill for some clean jockeys.
    What’s going on at home? Does everyone think I’m dead? Has it made the news?
    Nate thought of Mom and Sis being surrounded by reporters asking about the fugitive hacker Nate Black. Nate pictured a CNN reporter shoving a mike into Mom’s face and shouting, “Did you know your son was a criminal wanted by the FBI?”
    That was when Nate finally started to cry.

    They didn’t kill