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

motion of glaciers – ice has covered the land since the volcano fell to sleep. It is within this structure that rumour – and nothing more – states is the resting place of the wizard.”
    “And where is this volcano?”
    “No one knows. It is merely rumour, hints of a time when that land was lush and green. It has been so long that it is almost nothing but myth – I would have dismissed it, had there not been corroboration.”
    “From whom?”
    “From carvings I found on a pre-historic shield, made of a wood not native to our shores. The pictograms show a vast eruption, and crudely, the encroaching ice.”
    “You give me much to think about. Perhaps I was not wrong to give you the gift of un-death.”
    “There is more.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Ah, um…I don’t know how to put this…but It is rumoured that the wizard will awake come the return.”  Fernip Unger turned his gaze away from the Anamnesor. He realised, swiftly, that he had overstepped the mark. Some things he was not supposed to know.
    “Well, thank you for your candour. I believe we are finished for the day. Just keep trying, Master Reader. I do so appreciate your assistance in this matter. You must excuse me. I have other matters to attend.”
    “Your will master.”
    As Klan turned, he added, “And may I say how well you are looking?”
    Fernip gave him a l ook only the dead can pull off, then watched Klan’s receding back. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he had touched a nerve.
    Dead or not, some knowledge should be kept to himself. He would have to be more circumspect in the future.
     
    *
     

Chapter Thirteen
     
    Eventually, he thought it would be a kindness to the Kuh’taenium. Not long now and she would be weak enough to die. Perhaps she deserved it. She had served humankind for so long. Empathy was not one of Sventhan’s strong suites, but he could imagine just how tired he would be if he had been born to think, and to remember, and had done so for a thousand years or more.
    He was tired enough now, and he had only been thinking for a day. But while he knew he might not be a great thinker, he did understand the meaning of duty as few others.
    Sventhan followed the Omerteran. He followed it in his every action, his every word. But he knew also what it did not preclude, what it allowed, and how far he could traverse within its iron-bound code. The Omerteran was a way of life, handed down from generation to generation. Over the years it had been spread far and wide, the family growing, but still always able to trace their roots back to the beginning when they had been builders. The knowledge was part of the code – a way to make a building live. There was no magic. It was geometry, in the lines, and the stone. The stone was rare now. There were no more quarries. But far from becoming forgotten, the knowledge of how to build was entrenched in a widening family of builders. There was no call for it any more, but it was the rules. It was never written – and no body outside of the family knew what they knew. It had survived for a thousand years, survived the exile of some of their members across the western ocean, and but two examples of their works remained, the rest lay in ruins, and a few forgotten, or taken over by beasts, converted to a lair, granting those beasts a measure of intelligence. One of the remaining buildings was in Beheth, its name forgotten, because the people who used it were too busy reading books they forgot to use the writing on the walls. The other was the Kuh’taenium.
    Sventhan and his family did not know, but there was an older example – Sybremreyen, the home of the Sard. But that predated the Kuh’taenium.
    Sventhan took up his quill for the last time and dipped it in dark ink. A solitary drip hung from the tip while he paused for thought. The pause was, to an outside observer, overly long. But sometimes it takes a ponderous man to take the right action. Anyone can be rash, or intelligent.