Read Online undying legion 01 - unbound man by matt karlov - Free Book Online

longer saw Clade as an aid to his ambitions, he could hardly fail to realise that Clade could still hinder them greatly if he chose. Fear would keep him in line for a while yet.
    The remaining details assembled themselves in Clade’s mind. Garrett would have to retain the task of recovering the urn, at least for the time being. To insist on the urn’s importance and then reassign the task to someone else would likely be a provocation too far. That aside, Garrett would work on Oculus business only, and Clade would find someone else to assist him with his private project. A party from Zeanes was expected in a few days’ time, bringing with them two new sorcerers for Anstice, including an old student of his. Perhaps he could find a way of assuring himself of her trustworthiness. Perhaps, with her, it would be loyalty after all.
    Clade stood, stretching the kinks from his back. The despair he’d contained was gone now, vanished as though it had never been. He nodded, satisfied.
    A sharp bray from somewhere nearby caught Clade’s ear. The noise came again, then abruptly cut off. A chanted prayer took its place; a lone baritone this time, delineating the contours of the earlier song like a pencil sketch traced over watercolours. A sacrifice, conducted on one of the altars behind the temple.
    He paused, a smile playing about the corner of his lips. For all their solemnity, for all the gravity with which they invested their law, somehow the Kefirans were never quite able to stop sinning. Rather than amending their actions, they chose instead to address the consequences. Forgiveness. Absolution for sins committed. Removing the sin as though it had never been.
    But it had. Imagining otherwise was worse than foolish, and Clade had never been a fool.
    He strode from the temple, through the smoke-filled antechamber and onto the street. The Oculus building stood opposite, tall and imposing, dark despite the afternoon sun. Arms folded, Clade squinted up at his adjunct’s window, just around from his own.
    You failed me today, Garrett. Be assured that you will not fail me again.
    I will not permit it.

Chapter 3
Why does a man desire a sword, or a horse, or a son? Is it not to extend the effective reach of his will? So you see, it is foolish to question the study of sorcery, as if it were unlike any other thing upon the earth. Sorcery exists, therefore it must be obtained.
— Giarvanno do Salin I
Meditations on Power
    “Master Arandras?”
    Arandras looked up from his half-written letter and frowned at the boy sitting cross-legged in the corner of his shop. “I’m nobody’s master, least of all yours. Just Arandras is fine.” Wil stared back, unabashed, and Arandras set down his pen. “What is it?”
    “How many words are there?”
    “How many…?” Arandras shook his head. “I don’t know, Wil. Lots.”
    The ditch-digger, Leff, had come by the shop that morning in response to the marked inkwell Arandras had left by the man’s door while heading out to the bar the previous night, his usual signal to indicate the arrival of a new missive. Wil had come too, settling onto the corner table with a wax tablet on his lap and a stylus in his hand, marking out large, slanting letters as Arandras read the message from Leff’s sister to them both. “You don’t mind, do you?” Leff had said, as he always did when leaving his son in the shop, and Arandras had waved him off with a smile and a shake of the head. The boy was quiet, unusually serious for a child of six summers, with an uncommon capacity for stillness. Sometimes, when Wil was present, Arandras found he could think of Tereisa with something not far from repose.
    “What about the Gisleans? Do they have as many words as we do?”
    “More than likely,” Arandras said.
    “And the Kefirans?”
    “The Kefirans and Gisleans mostly share the same words,” Arandras said. “The Sareans, too.”
    “Oh.” Wil considered this new development with a frown. “How