Read Online Lord of the Silent Kingdom by Glen Cook - Free Book Online Page B

absent the blessing of the Church.
    That troubled Hecht. It was vague. The Special Office could make anyone fit. Even the most devout Episcopal Chaldareans bought small charms and invocations against the malice of the Night.
    “What you got?” Ghort asked as Lumberer cleared the mouth of the Teragi, after creeping past dredges valiantly trying to keep the channel navigable. The craft rode the evening ebb tide. Lights in Remaleon-Teragi shone to their left. Hecht was, at last, allowing himself to examine the contents of the anonymous courier wallet by the light of a storm lantern. A crewman stood by lest the landlubbers did something stupid and set the ship on fire.
    Fire was the fiercest terror of sailors.
    “What’ve we got, Pipe?”
    “Other than this letter telling me to take the big packet to somebody named Montes Alina, who’ll be using the name Beomond, and how to find the guy, there’s nothing here.”
    “Turning us into mail carriers, eh?”
    “Possibly.” Paranoia suggested the possibility that the packet would finger him for another assassin.
    The Special Office owed him some pain. But they should not know that. He hoped they did not know that.
    Ghort said, “That’s right. They got their fanatic asses roasted and kicked out up there, a couple years ago. That’s where Drocker got himself all crippled.”
    “Yes. Something about them trying to wipe out the Sonsan Deves.”
    “You ask me, they were just gonna rob them. But the damned Unbelievers had the balls to fight back.”
    “So then the ruling families got their tails all twisted because that would cost them their clerical class.”
    “Yep. Ran the Brotherhood out of town. Too late, the way I heard. The Deves packed up and left.”
    Hecht knew that story from the inside.
    Only Anna Mozilla and a few Deves knew.
    “We should be careful,” Ghort said. “Till we know who wants to kill you.”
    “I plan on that. I’m going to hang around just long enough to steal enough to set myself up with a commercial farm. So Anna and I can spend our old age raising grapes and making babies.” He was half serious. He did not expect to return to Dreanger while er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen remained the power behind Gordimer the Lion, who was the power behind the Kaif.
    That Lumberer did not always operate inside the law was borne out by the skills of her crew. After crossing the bar they turned north and sailed on into the night, navigating by the light of a quarter moon.
    In often treacherous seas. There were a million little islands out there. More shoals appeared regularly as sea levels fell.
    Near as Hecht could tell, more permanent ice lingering in the high mountain regions meant less water in the rivers feeding into the Mother Sea.
    There were dredges working the channel of the Sawn River, up to Sonsa. Lumberer had a shallow draft and, of course, rode in on a flood tide. That was basic, common sense seamanship, old as the trade itself.
    Hecht was surprised by Sonsa’s quays. Today’s highest high water was three feet lower than at his last arrival.
    He said, “I want out of Sonsa as fast as possible. So we deliver the courier case and scoot.” Though he had no reason to think anyone would recognize him now.
    “I’m with you. This place is so quiet, it’s creepy.”
    The waterfront was unnaturally sedate. Two dozen large ships tied up at the family quays looked like they had not moved in a long time. The rigging on some had gone ragged.
    “The place is dying,” Hecht said. He slung his bag, stepped up to the quay from Lumberer’s rail, using a main stay for leverage.
    A dozen men and boys surrounded him. Each tried to out-shout the others. All offered to help carry his possessions, to guide him wherever he wanted to go, to take him to a willing sister or daughter. There had been none of this desperation last time Hecht came through.
    “This is worse than back home,” Ghort murmured. “Except around where the squatters are. You.” Ghort grabbed a