Read Online The Ruling Sea by Robert V S Redick - Free Book Online

arch of the shrine. His arms were spread as if in welcome, or perhaps to hold back the procession. Here in the sunshine his great age was more apparent, and so was his unnatural vigor. His raiment was black, and the white beard against it was like a snowdrift on a hill of coal. In his right hand he clasped a scepter: pure gold but for a crystal set at the top, within which some dark object glittered.
    His aspirants stood below him, three to a side (Look at them , people whispered, they’re sfvantskor s, they can kill you with their eyes shut) . Like their master they wore black, but their faces were young: faces of men and women barely out of their teens. Symbols for birthplace and tribe gleamed in red tattoos upon their necks. Those nearest the Father wore white masks—ghostly against the sable robes. A seventh knelt just before the Father with a silver knife across his lap.
    On the steps below the aspirants stood rows of women—a hundred or more, old and young, light and dark. Below these stood as many men, holding strange glass pipes of many colors, each one dangling from a braided thong.
    Like a wave about a sandcastle the crowd engulfed the shrine, blanketing the low hills on either side of the road. A hush had fallen over them: the old man’s stillness had erased all sense of a carnival from the proceedings. Toil and wind, hard stone, cold seas: these were what they saw in his unblinking eyes.
    “I am nameless,” he said, and his voice carried a surprising distance. “My holy office is my fate: there is nothing more. I am Father-Resident of Babqri City, Master of the Citadel of Hing, Confessor to His Serene Majesty King Somolar. I am the sworn foe of things evil, forever.
    “Two thousand years ago the shrines of the Old Faith stood on every isle of this archipelago, and the Gátri-Mangol, the White Kings of Mangland, presided over an age of wealth and order. Here where we are gathered rose one of the most beautiful shrines of all, destroyed by the rising sea in the Worldstorm. Twenty-six years ago I sent a letter to a monarch, new to his throne but wise beyond his years, and begged a great favor, and he granted it. We of the Faith bow before thee, Oshiram of Simja, first king of these isles to allow the rebuilding of a Mzithrin house of prayer.”
    And with that the Father descended to his knees, placed the scepter with infinite care before him, and bent his forehead to the ground.
    The king fidgeted, cleared his throat. “You’re welcome, Father, very welcome. Now do rise.”
    Slowly, the Father took to his feet.
    “This house is young, but its founding-stones were recovered from the old shrine, and they are sacred. Therefore will I take my place beneath the great arch and bar the path to those whom devils claim. They may not enter here. Let them fear the attempt.”
    He raised the scepter high, and the sun gleamed on the crystal at its tip, but the dark heart was not illuminated. Then with a last fierce look he turned and marched into the shadows.
    “Oh happy day,” muttered Neeps.
    Thasha elbowed him. “His scepter,” she whispered. “There’s a drawing of it in the Polylex , or of one just like it. Something blary special, it was. Oh, what was its name?”
    Pazel sighed. Thasha owned a copy of the most dangerous book ever written: the forbidden thirteenth edition of The Merchant’s Polylex , the mere possession of which was punishable by death. Earlier editions, and later ones, were to be found in every ship’s library and seamen’s club; they were simply huge (and untrustworthy) one-volume encyclopedias. The thirteenth, however, was crammed with the darkest secrets of the Arquali Empire. But the book was more frustrating than useful, for the author had hidden those secrets in over five thousand pages of rumor and hearsay and outright myth. It was a wonder that Thasha found anything within its pages. The priest’s scepter, now—
    A terrible thought came to him suddenly. He gripped Thasha’s