Read Online Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy) by Craig Saunders - Free Book Online

he was dead. The dead tend to be a less emotional than the living.
    Fernip sighed, and more dust joined the musty air. His lungs no longer required oxygen, but his muscles still worked and breathing was a habit that was hard to forget. He had been rejuvenated, so that he looked like a much younger man, but in reality he was in his hundreds. But then, what does age matter when you are immortal?
    Klan had needed the best for his elite division, and he had not let terminal cancer spoil his plans. He had healed the ancient reader of his illness, but in the process had created a walking, talking cadaver.
    A mild side effect, thought Klan. He should be happy, but no, he frowns constantly and shows me no gratitude when I come to visit.
    Klan si ghed inwardly – he was not one to make friends easily. He understood this. Still, if he wanted companionship, and a friendly face, he always had his delegation.
    The thought of his collection of grinning faces, which adorned the ceiling of his quarters, gave him comfort. Holding the thought in his mind, he turned his attention back to the reader.
    “Any news for me today, Master Reader?”
    “I haven’t been to the toilet for months.”
    Klan smiled without humour. The dead could be so droll.
    “I meant, Master Reader, have you discerned the location of the red wizard’s resting place, as I asked?”
    “I have too few scrolls to work with. Much of what was written about the wizard is merely fantasy and legend. I need access to a wider library. I fear there is little within our archives I have not already trawled.”
    “Well, what have you found? I did not give you the gift of immortality so you could while away your time engrossed in frippery and erotic tales.”
    “If there is one thing I have learned during my living years, and a lesson that has been drummed into my very bones since my untimely, and somewhat unusual death, it is the value of patience.”
    “I could always kill you again.”
    “I live in hope, Anamnesor.”
    Klan smiled coldly. “Careful what you wish for, Master Reader. Now, as you were saying…”
    “I don’t think I was…” Master Reader Unger saw the expression on Klan’s face, lent a demonic air by the red light leaking from his eyes “…but I believe I have found something within the scrolls.”
    “And?”
    “It was among the Archipelago Scrolls, and they tell of the war between the old ones and the rahken s. It was partially burned, no doubt in the eruption of the Archivists’ Island twenty five years ago, but whole enough for me to discern that once, there was a great wizard, who, with the aid of the rahken s, defeated the old ones.”
    Fernip Unger saw the look on Klan’s face clearly this time. It needed little illumination. So, the dead Protocrat thought, he does not know as much as he should. Wisely, he said nothing.
    “And have your studies told you where this wizard went to after the sundering of the old world?”
    “Just what you are aware of already. He lies, if the histories are to be believed – and you must understand that there is much within the tomes that is mere supposition – within an icy tomb far to the north of the western continent, which ancient Hierarch cartographers refer to as ‘Ascalain’. I am sure the people there have their own name for their continent. It is made up of three disparate nations, with few islands to speak of: there is a small country, where exiles from this land first fled, called Sturma through the ages, a vast wasteland further west, called Draymar by its residents, and a frozen wasteland far to the north, known as Teryithyr…”
    “I know all this,” interrupted Klan.
    “I am sure you do, but I am equally sure that you did not know of the existence of a dormant volcano far inside the Teryithyrian wastes, known as the Thaxamalan’s Crucible to ancient scribes, named for a mythical figure from Sturman lore. The volcano itself is frozen beneath a cover of ice, its sides worn thin with the