Read Online Dragon Forge: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Two by James Wyatt - Free Book Online Page B

beside Rienne, he stared blankly at the wall of mountains rising up to starboard, wondering whether he had made a terrible mistake in bringing them into this danger.
    After a moment, his eyes took in the landscape before him. His mind seemed to shift into a different way of thinking and perceiving, and the mountains were no longer just mountains.
    “What is it, love?” Rienne was looking up at him, concern etched on her brow.
    “Eternity,” he whispered.
    She tried to follow his gaze, searching the mountains to see whatever it was that he saw.
    “The words of creation, Ree. They’re written on the land here—the Prophecy is inscribed in the shape of the mountains and the path of the coast.” Before the battle at Starcrag Plain, the rolling hills and fields of Aundair had spoken to him of their past and future, of centuries of turmoil and bloodshed. This land was different, powerfully different.
    “Tell me what you see.”
    “Eternity,” he repeated. “The land of the dragons has been since the beginning, and it will be at the end of the world. Change is alien to this land. The Prophecy unfolds around it, not within it.”
    It was not quite unchanging, he realized. But the pace of its history was slower than in Khorvaire. The echoes of incredibly ancient events still resounded dimly within the mountains. He saw a trace of the battle that had wrecked the ship, a fleeting blur of movement where the destiny and activity of Khorvaire intruded upon the stately majesty of eternal Argonnessen.
    “What about us?” Rienne asked. “Surely our arrival here speaks of change, however small.”
    “A tiny quaver in the voice of the Prophecy. We will leave no lasting mark on this land.”
    “Which is greater? To leave a great mark on the volatile history of Khorvaire, or to add your voice to the symphony of eternity?”
    Gaven furrowed his brow and looked down at Rienne. She tore her eyes from the horizon and met his gaze. He took in her whole face, ran his fingers through her hair. He had always had a vague sense that her destiny was significant, momentous, but it had never been clear to him—or to her. He saw her, for a moment, as a part of this land. She had mastered the discipline of focusing her soul’s energy, uniting thought with action. There was a stillness even in her movement, a purity of intention. A thread of eternity woven into her mortality.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted at last.

    Early the next morning, Jordhan called Gaven and Rienne to the poop deck and pointed to the coast ahead of the
Sea Tiger
. Gaven scanned the coast, but he found that his eyes were still onthe Prophecy, and he had a hard time discerning what Jordhan was pointing at.
    “The cove?” Rienne asked.
    “I think we’ve found our harbor,” Jordhan answered.
    Finally Gaven saw the cove cut into the coast ahead of them. The mountains rose up on the near side of the cove, but on the far side, a beach sloped gently up to level ground.
    “The gates to Argonnessen stand open,” he said.
    The words stirred something in his memory—the gates of Khyber? The Soul Reaver’s gates? That portal had figured prominently in the Prophecy surrounding the battle at Starcrag Plain and his fight against the Soul Reaver. But he felt there was something else….
    He smiled at himself. A few months ago, the Prophecy had been so vivid in his mind that it leaped to mind unbidden, overwhelming him with visions and dire warnings. Now he searched his memory and caught only the hem of a fleeting thought—the gates to the land of dragons … or something like that. He didn’t miss the nightmares, the visions that seized him even when he was awake, the constant sense that he remembered events an instant before they occurred. But as he had said to Rienne, he did miss the sense of purpose.
    “The gates to Argonnessen,” Rienne echoed.
    While Gaven was lost in thought, Jordhan returned to the helm to steer the
Sea Tiger
into the cove. Rienne leaned over the