Read Online Empyrion II: The Siege of Dome by Stephen Lawhead - Free Book Online

concert sometime ... if you like—”
    “Oh, I would,” agreed Pizzle heartily. “Tomorrow night. Okay?”
    Starla laughed. “I don't know if there is a concert tomorrow night.”
    “Then we'll go sailing. Anything. Please? Say yes. I'll come pick you up. Where do you live?”
    “Very well,” Starla agreed. “We will meet again tomorrow evening.”
    “What about tomorrow morning? As a matter of fact, I'm free all day tomorrow.”
    “But I work tomorrow.”
    “Where? What do you do? Tell me about it. I want to know about everything you do. I want to know all about you.”
    “Most often I serve the Clerk at the College of Mentors. There are twenty-four of us, and we help Mathiax administrate the Mentors' resolutions.” She stopped and smiled at Pizzle. “But the day after tomorrow I am free.”
    “You are? Good! Let's spend the whole day together. Okay? Say yes.”
    “Yes.” Starla laughed, a warm, throaty sound, full of good humor. “I'd like that very much.” She paused, glanced down at her feet and then up into Pizzle's eyes. Growing serious, she said, “I know you are a Traveler, and that you come from another world. Jaire has told me much about you. I must seem very plain to you after all you've seen.” Pizzle opened his mouth to tell her just how wrong she was, but she silenced him with a gesture and went on. “Forgive my presumption, but it's hard for me to think of you as someone so different. I think we are more alike than different. And though I don't know you very well, I like you very much, Asquith Pizzle. I would like to be your friend while you are here.”
    He looked at her, standing against the heaven-scented background of the feathertrees, and swallowed a lump in his throat the size of a melon. “No one has ever said anything like that to me,” he said. “I'm going to stay here forever.”

NINE
    Cejka, Director of Rumon Hage, took up his ceremonial bhuj, turned the flat blade so that its polished surface faced the correct quadrant, thrust out his chin, and squared his shoulders. Though his days as a member of the Threl elite might well be numbered, he would appear among his own people as their worthy leader: imperious, unafraid, powerful. Opposites, to be sure, of how he really felt. Covol, his Subdirector, arranged the hood of his black-and-red striped yos, nodded once, and stepped away. Cejka began walking slowly, a phalanx of Hage officers and functionaries behind him, leading his delegation through Rumon to the docks where they would board one of the official funeral boats that would take them to Saecaraz, where Sirin Rohee's funeral was to be held.
    As they moved through Hage, he thought again about his message from Tvrdy. Though the Cabal had suffered crushing defeats of late, it was no small tribute to his own skill and cunning that his network of rumor messengers was still virtually intact. For this he was thankful.
    The meeting with the Dhog, Giloon Bogney, had been, in Tvrdy's estimation, a success. They had gained the nonbeing's promises of support—though at a very high price, it seemed to Cejka. Hage stent for the Old Section? Such a thing was inconceivable even bare weeks ago. No doubt Tvrdy had only done what he'd been forced to do.
    Ah, Tvrdy, my friend, thought Cejka gloomily. What is to become of us? Jamrog will not let us live, I think. Already I feel his hands on my throat. I hope you know what you are doing. An alliance with Dhogs! Unthinkable!
    Be that as it may, Cejka now had to select the men who would go to the Old Section to begin training the Dhogs in the ways of covert combat. That, too, rubbed Cejka the wrong way—teaching Rumon secrets to nonbeings. But Tvrdy had insisted. There could be no holding back now. Jamrog had gained the Supreme Directorship, and the only way to survive a Purge was with an army at your back—even if it had to be an army of Dhogs. It was to Tvrdy's credit, Cejka reminded himself, that he'd not only considered turning to the