Read Online The River of Shadows by Robert V S Redick - Free Book Online Page A

bag.”
    “Not that easily,” Pazel objected.
    Neda sat between her brother
sfvantskor
s and looked at Pazel much as they did, with doubt that was nearly accusation. Of course Pazel was shocked to learn that she had become a
sfvantskor
. But how much greater had her shock been! During the invasion of Ormael she had watched Arquali marines beat him senseless, while their fellow soldiers rampaged through the family house, smashing everything they could not eat or slip in their pockets. Five years later, hidden by a mask, she had seen Pazel with Thasha Isiq: daughter of the very admiral who led the invasion.
    Every Mzithrini youth learned to hate Arqualis. There were reasons of history, war stories from uncles and teachers, scars on temple walls. But few of Neda’s age had as many reasons as she.
    Nine of those reasons had crowded into a single hour. Nine reasons who had dragged her screaming into a barn.
    Now her brother served those same Arqualis—cared for them, loved them maybe. Neda had known about him since the morning of Treaty Day, more than four months ago. But the thought still made her want to scream.
    For she too had spoken but part of the truth. Her mother’s spell had done more than change the color of her hair. It was an augmentation hex; it took an innate gift, whatever one was naturally best at, and strengthened it a thousandfold. At first Neda thought that her mother had nearly killed her only to prove that she was plain and stupid: a girl with no gifts to augment. Only years later, in training to be a
sfvantskor
, had she realized that she did possess one gift: a prodigious memory. And as she aged, and so had more years of life to remember, the spell had come into its own.
    Now her memory was vast and merciless. It rarely obeyed her will. She might try for hours to summon a specific fact, and fail. But when she made no effort her memory worked on, like an involuntary organ, pumping, flooding her with knowledge she did not want. As it was doing now. The dust sculpting beams of light through a high window in the barn. The nine voices of those soldiers. The underside of each chin.
    Cayer Vispek offered to share the rabbit, but Pazel and the Tholjassan man gently declined; they could see that the others were starved. Neda and her comrades attacked the meal inearnest, and as they chewed the man called Hercól Stanapeth began to speak. His Mzithrini was halting, like something remembered from a distant time, but with Pazel’s help he told his tale.
    And what a tale it was: the lie of the Great Peace, the treason plotted in Etherhorde, the riches hidden aboard the
Chathrand
, the fact that the Shaggat Ness had never died.
    At this last confession Cayer Vispek had set down his plate. In the darkest of voices he asked Pazel to repeat Hercól’s words. Then he put out a hand to the two younger
sfvantskor
s.
    “Your weapons. Quickly.”
    Neda and Jalantri were astounded, but they obeyed, unbuckling their knives and swords and placing them in their leader’s hands. Vispek closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again they were deadly.
    “The Ness,” he said to Hercól. “You have harbored the Shaggat Ness, the Blasphemer, stained with the blood of half a million of our people. The one who broke the Mzithrin family, and beggared us all.”
    “Arqual has done so, yes,” said Hercól.
    “And he is aboard your ship even now?”
    “He is enchanted,” said Hercól. “Turned to lifeless stone; but we have reason to fear that the enchantment will be reversed. He is to be returned to his worshippers in Gurishal, to provoke a war inside your country.”
    A brief silence; then Jalantri exploded to his feet. “Give him a weapon, Cayer, and give me mine. The Shaggat! This has all been about the Shaggat! They mean to destroy us, to plant their flag on the ruins of Babqri and Surahk and Srag! Don’t you, cannibals? Deny it if you dare!”
    “The Father was right,” said Neda, with equal venom. “He