Read Online The Lesser Kindred (ttolk-2) by Elizabeth Kerner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Kerner
Tags: sf_fantasy
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dagger in his heart. I have known Rikard for the last twenty years, during which we have cordially hated each other. However, he comes perilously near the truth and I am not quite prepared to let all my secrets go. None have connected Malior the demon master of the Sixth Circle with Berys the Archimage of the College of Mages in Verfaren, and I do not wish that to be known just yet. Not long now and I will not care, but for the moment my respectable life as Berys is worth protecting. Rikard may have to be—well, accidents happen, and I begin to tire of Rikard. He is the only one of the Magistri who knows anything of demon lore, apart from me, and his knowledge is not convenient.
We have made good time on our journey so far. The weather has favoured us, cold but clear and sunny. If it holds thus, Elimar is only six days' travel from where I stand. Had I prepared a demonline I had been there and returned in moments, but I carry one with me on this journey—one end anchored in my hidden chambers in Verfaren, the other to be set in Elimar when I arrive, to allow a future visit to be swift and untraceable. It will be good to have an escape route to Elimar. I will also establish the return journey, in case I require it, and will fix the "destination" at Verfaren when I re- turn. Demonlines must be established physically at either end and they are not easily erected. Still, though they last for only one use they are worth the price—instant transporta- tion between two places, no matter how distant. Even dragons cannot move so swiftly; and once used the lines disappear and none but the maker knows where the traveller has gone. Well worth the price. One never knows when such a thing might be useful. I believe in being prepared for all eventualities.
I am no closer, as yet, to learning how the dragons might he defeated, but I have collected every reference book from the library at Verfaren and I am reading them through. Surely someone, somewhere, has learned a better way of defeating dragons than risking themselves in combat! The Ring of Seven Circles works, but the worker must be within range of the beast, and when Marik used the one I prepared for him the creatures broke into his mind. I do not wish to take that chance.
I had not known they could do that. I must be more wary in my dealings with them.
First, though, I must heal Marik and learn all that he knows. I cast this very recording spell upon him when he went on his journey to the Dragon Isle, so that every thought, every word, was written as he thought it in a book in my own chambers. That was well, as far as it went, but when his mind broke so did the link. The book finished long before I had intended it to.
Poor fool. He thought, to the very end, that I aided him in his search for his daughter that he might be rid of his pain. He promised her to demons before she was born, in exchange for the making of a Farseer. Marik's incompetence allowed that particular object to be stolen as soon as it was made by Lanen's mother, one Maran Vena, but since the price was never paid the demons put pain into Marik's leg to remind him. The pain would never cease until his firstborn child should be given to the Lords of Hell. Search though he might in the years between, he could never find Maran again, or her child. However, the Powers Below look after their own; he met the daughter by chance last autumn. He intends to give her to the Lords of Hell to pay his debt and so he freed of the pain that has haunted him since that day.
I let him believe that I would assist him in return for the body of his daughter after her soul was taken by the Lords Below. Marik has always been a credulous fool. Let him suffer agonies from now until the end of the world. I need his daughter, whole and unharmed, to fulfill the prophecy spoken by one of our number many long years ago.
When the breach is healed at last,
when the two are joined in one,
when the lost ones from the past live
and move in
We have made good time on our journey so far. The weather has favoured us, cold but clear and sunny. If it holds thus, Elimar is only six days' travel from where I stand. Had I prepared a demonline I had been there and returned in moments, but I carry one with me on this journey—one end anchored in my hidden chambers in Verfaren, the other to be set in Elimar when I arrive, to allow a future visit to be swift and untraceable. It will be good to have an escape route to Elimar. I will also establish the return journey, in case I require it, and will fix the "destination" at Verfaren when I re- turn. Demonlines must be established physically at either end and they are not easily erected. Still, though they last for only one use they are worth the price—instant transporta- tion between two places, no matter how distant. Even dragons cannot move so swiftly; and once used the lines disappear and none but the maker knows where the traveller has gone. Well worth the price. One never knows when such a thing might be useful. I believe in being prepared for all eventualities.
I am no closer, as yet, to learning how the dragons might he defeated, but I have collected every reference book from the library at Verfaren and I am reading them through. Surely someone, somewhere, has learned a better way of defeating dragons than risking themselves in combat! The Ring of Seven Circles works, but the worker must be within range of the beast, and when Marik used the one I prepared for him the creatures broke into his mind. I do not wish to take that chance.
I had not known they could do that. I must be more wary in my dealings with them.
First, though, I must heal Marik and learn all that he knows. I cast this very recording spell upon him when he went on his journey to the Dragon Isle, so that every thought, every word, was written as he thought it in a book in my own chambers. That was well, as far as it went, but when his mind broke so did the link. The book finished long before I had intended it to.
Poor fool. He thought, to the very end, that I aided him in his search for his daughter that he might be rid of his pain. He promised her to demons before she was born, in exchange for the making of a Farseer. Marik's incompetence allowed that particular object to be stolen as soon as it was made by Lanen's mother, one Maran Vena, but since the price was never paid the demons put pain into Marik's leg to remind him. The pain would never cease until his firstborn child should be given to the Lords of Hell. Search though he might in the years between, he could never find Maran again, or her child. However, the Powers Below look after their own; he met the daughter by chance last autumn. He intends to give her to the Lords of Hell to pay his debt and so he freed of the pain that has haunted him since that day.
I let him believe that I would assist him in return for the body of his daughter after her soul was taken by the Lords Below. Marik has always been a credulous fool. Let him suffer agonies from now until the end of the world. I need his daughter, whole and unharmed, to fulfill the prophecy spoken by one of our number many long years ago.
When the breach is healed at last,
when the two are joined in one,
when the lost ones from the past live
and move in
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