Read Online Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset by Kevin Kelleher - Free Book Online

rare contrast between the dull darkness of pre-dawn and the bright radiance of the day-breaking sun, temporarily reserved only for his father. Atop his camel he looked like a saint, or an angel – glorious and profound.
    In that moment, though Havlah had not been told, he knew that Votoc must have blessed his father.
    The two set off southward while the Agnari remained behind, distant and untouchable, standing as still as a statue. The wind pulled at his robes and his hair, but his body did not waiver. From the corner of one of his bluish-white eyes, a tear slowly rolled out onto his leathery cheek.

Chapter Six:
Prophecy
     
     
     
    Erand had begun as a prosperous river town, positioned strategically at the intersection of the mighty Vulc Muri, and the busiest of Gresadia’s many roads, the Cen Vath. The Vulc Muri emerged from the forest of Divar in the south and flowed up through Zarothus and Erand, finally terminating in a magnificent delta in New Gresad, where it emptied into the northern sea, the Baeno Leir. The Cen Vath, Gresadia’s longest cross-country thoroughfare, stretched from the distant reaches of western Gresadia in Morvagan all the way to the capital of the neighboring country, Wralland, in the far east. When airships replaced both rivers and roads as the dominant conveyor of commerce, Erand was quick to adapt.
    Now a sprig of vaulting skyscrapers bristled from the center of the city, towering above shops and offices. Around them sank the lower-lying residential neighborhoods of Erand, spreading out in a wide circle. The towers themselves stood anywhere from ten to twenty stories high, to the very limit that stone and wood can achieve.
    Following the modern style of typical Gresadian architecture, ostentation was prime. To emphasize majesty, height and light, buildings were fitted with spiky decorations, pointed arches, and tall, latticed windows. In low buildings, ceilings were steeply vaulted and supported with ribbing and pillars that carried the eye upward to create a sense of rising verticality. The whole city seemed to reach up to the sky – to Aelmuligo.
    The collection of towers was a sky harbor, a place for ships to moor, and a direct entrance to the city center from above. As a result, the skyscrapers themselves were typically inns or markets or both – a place for residents as well as travelers to congregate, do business, and find diversion. Dirigibles, balloons, and airships of all variety were docked at towers or floating in the air above Erand. Tethered to one of the tallest structures was Gilderam .
    It hung in the air like a great green egg, capped at its dorsal and ventral poles with dual observatories. Slick, polished darkwood merged gracefully with the shiny metal engine housing and the netted canvas of the balloon. Around its midsection, little glinting portholes dotted the hull, forecastle, and aftcastle in neat rows. The bridge, an angular window at the front of the vessel, gleamed in the sunlight like the cycloptic eye of some bulbous green fish, its pupil formed by the hole Owein had left in it.
    From her position on the main deck, Shazahd could see from one end of Erand to the other. The light of mid morning lit up her spires and cast long shadows down her narrow, winding streets. Industrious peddlers were milling in the markets. Shoppers in the city square, more than an itth away, looked like ants as they busily scuttled from store to store.
    The Vulc Muri bisected Erand by cutting a jagged, serpentine trench all the way through it. High-vaulted bridges crisscrossed it intermittently, connecting both halves together. Through the years the streets had been laid without much planning, a feature common of Gresadian towns, and, compounding over centuries, had eventually evolved into a wholly unmanageable labyrinthine mess.
    The view of it from above was quite breathtaking.
    Shazahd’s ship was moored at the hotel Vavishna, which jutted straight up from the middle of the city. Far