Read Online Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 07 by Flight of the Raven (v1.0) - Free Book Online Page A

Aidan,
amused by the all-too-accurate vision, grinned, then wished he had not as dirt
fouled his teeth. He spat. I could simply
take lir-shape and let this fool of a boy run on without me —
                 But
the thought of risking the gelding made him reconsider. His father had trained
him too well; when it came to welfare, he thought of the horse's in place of
his own.
                 Or, I could—
                 But
what else he could—or could not—do, went unthought. Without altering his pace,
the gelding dodged off the track and crashed into deadfall and foliage, neatly
avoiding a tree trunk. Aidan also avoided the trunk, but did not miss the limp
sweeping down from the rack of low boughs.
                 In
reflex, he thrust out a warding forearm, knowing it much too late. Lir —
                 It
was all Aidan managed as the tree limb embraced his ribs and swept him out of
the saddle.
     
  Chapter Four
 
 
                 « ^ »
     
                 He
dreamed. He dreamed he was made of smoke and fire in place of flesh and blood.
His heart was a white flame and his soul whiter still, so brilliant it was
blinding. Out of the white flame of his heart and the whiter brilliance of his
soul came the music that poured through his veins like quicksilver, burning
what it touched with a pain exquisitely sweet. He wanted to cry with its
beauty, but knew he dared not.
                 Water extinguishes flame. Extinguished, I
will die.
                 He
saw himself, but it was not himself. The Aidan he saw was another man,
insubstantial, incorporeal, substantive as smoke. He drifted this way, that
way, shredding himself as he moved, then forming himself again. And then the
man of smoke congealed into anther shape, taking the form of a raven, also made
of smoke, and the raven flew swiftly skyward in a bid for needed freedom.
                 South:
to an island: away from Homana-Mujhar and all the Cheysuli Keeps; away from the
world everyone else called home, until the raven found a new home among the
standing stones now fallen, cold and green and gray, where he perched upon a
shattered, rune-scribed altar as if he wished to speak of gods.
                 The
altar was overturned. From beneath it, something glinted with the
dull-brilliance of muddied gold. The raven, knowing need, left his perch and
descended.
                 A
chain. Coiled beneath the altar, perfect and unblemished. Its beauty was so
compelling that even the raven was moved to desire it. But a raven has no
hands; he shapechanged himself to a man and knelt down to pick up the chain.
                 He
touched it. It was whole. He lifted it. It was whole. He took it from the
shadows, unable to breathe, and held it in the light.
                 The
links were the size of a man's forearm. Seamless, flawless gold, filled with
twisted runes too intertwined to decipher.
                 He
dared to breathe on it. One of the links broke.
                 Grief
swallowed him. Why do I destroy when all
I want is to make things whole ?
                 He
still held half of the chain. The other half had fallen, spilled on leaf-molded
floor.
                 A
sound. He turned, still kneeling, still grasping his half of the chain, and saw
the shadowed figure in the tumbled doorway of lichen-clad stones.
                 The
voice was firm and commanding. "You hold me in your hand. What do you want
from me?"
                 Aidan
tried not to gape. Where had the stranger come from?
                 For
that matter, where was he ?
                 "Who
are you?" he blurted.
                 Disbelief
was manifest: black brows arched up, then snapped together over a
blade-straight nose. "The Mujhar," he said. Clearly the stranger
believed Aidan could surely name him;