Read Online Gods of Nabban by K. V. Johansen - Free Book Online

caravaneers’ talk in the market of Dernang, of patching a camel’s pad. Eventually, they had improvised a boot for her instead. It seemed simpler than trying to truss her, just the two of them, and stitch a patch to the pad itself, and the boot had lasted long enough for the foot to heal, though he’d done something to speed it and to keep any other sores from going so bad or deep.
    â€œI know,” Ghu said. “But I think nonetheless . . . the left-hand way. We’ll try the badlands.”
    Ahjvar didn’t debate the point further, only nodded. They headed back down to the camels, mounted, and set out again. Yes. The northerly road pulled at him, drawing him.
    â€œMaybe we’ll be able to buy grain from the tribes in Denanbak, if we go among them,” he said, mostly to drive that fish-on-a-line feeling from his mind. “We’ll come to settled lands sooner this way. We’d run short of feed for the camels and food for ourselves both before we came to Dernang or even to the winter camps of lower Denanbak, if we took the southern route here.”
    â€œDoes that matter? We have no money left. Do we?”
    â€œA few coins,” Ghu said guardedly. He had no idea if any trader of Denanbak would even take the three diviner’s coins he carried, they were so old. Maybe they’d have some value for the weight of the blackened bronze. There were Ahjvar’s bracelets, though. A lord of the west, decently outfitted as such, could sell his barbarian gold if he chose, though they would melt down the lovely work, no doubt, and never see the beauty in it. Truth was, he would like to see Ahjvar wear them again, well and whole and bright in the sun on a good horse. . . . “The gold—it’s the same problem, bring trouble after us, I think, selling or trading it in that land. Better to wait for Nabban and the cities. But I have a book I can sell. A thing like that won’t draw half a chieftain’s hall out after us the next night in hope of more as the bracelets would, but they would take it, thinking to sell it on to some caravan wizard.”
    â€œYou have a book? Ghu, you can’t read.”
    â€œIt’s not my book.”
    â€œYou can always be counted on to have something that doesn’t belong to you. Purses. Horses. Camels. Now books. I thought gods were more upright and moral. Let me see.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter, Ahj. It was a friend’s, but she’s dead in Marakand, I think.”
    â€œLet me see. You’ll have no idea what it should be worth, will you?”
    Ghu, with reluctance, twisted around to root through the bag closest behind his saddle. What he passed to Ahjvar was a fat leather scroll-case, worn, but well cared for. Ahjvar slid the scroll out and unrolled the first pasted paper page of it, to study close, fine Nabbani writing. Ghu craned to see. There was also an illustration of a lord and lady, sun and crescent moon raying their respective heads, and an ornate seal stamped in red, a flower surrounded by characters, which overlaid the elegant calligraphy of the title. Another few turns and Ghu could see bold black lines making little blocks of tracks down each page, surrounded by much dense writing.
    â€œThe hexagrams for coin-throwing,” Ahjvar said. “The book’s called The Balance of the Sun and the Moon. Nabbani divination.”
    Yes, Ahjvar could probably read it. He said he had learnt to read the court characters long ago, when to pass the years he had studied for a lawyer in Star River Crossing. Why, he didn’t seem too clear on himself. Maybe because the Leopard, or whatever he had called himself in those days, had needed some cloak of respectability.
    He also said, small wonder they had turned to a syllabic script in Yeh-Lin’s day, and generally from there he moved on to the subject of Ghu learning to read. Not this time, no. Ahjvar said only, “Your