Book 1 - Reap the East Wind Read Free Page A

him. Hunger won. He seized the cakes, fled to the pool, alternately ate and drank. When he finished, he clothed himself. Sandals and toga fit perfectly.
    He began exploring. Try as he might, he found no evidence of any presence but his own. He stared at the stone beast. Was there a ghost of a smile on those weathered lips?
    He climbed the monster and looked round from the peak of its great head.
    For as far as he could see this country was lifeless. The flatter land was ochre and rust. The mountains were bare grey stone.
    He knew he would never leave. No mere mortal could storm that wasteland and hope to evade the Dark Lady’s eternal embrace.
    That old man had not done him much of a favor.
    He tried calling the woman in white, the stone beast, even Nahaman the Odite. His shouts did nothing but stir muted echoes.
    Some seemed echoes of timeless mirth.
    He returned to his place by the pool.
    “Deliverer.”
    The voice came to him out of dream. The woman was beside him, but the word had not come from her. It had whispered down from above.
    “What?”
    “Deliverer. The one foretold. The one whose coming I prophesied in the hour of our despair. He who shall deliver us from the curse of Nahaman and restore to us the days of glory.”
    Ethrian was thoroughly baffled.
    “Long have we awaited your coming, our powers dwindling to a ghost of what once was. Free us of our shackles and we will grant your every whim. Unchain us and we will make of you a Lord of the earth, as were our servants of old, before Nahaman rebelled and flung her dark horde against us.”
    Ethrian did not feel like anyone’s savior. He felt like what he was, a confused, frightened boy. He had stumbled onto something bigger than he, something beyond comprehension. He was interested in surviving, finding his way home, and getting back at his enemies. In that order.
    “You have fears and hatreds within you, Deliverer. We see them. We read them as a scribe reads the leaves of a book. We say, free us. Together shall we trample your enemies into the dust. Indite. Reveal unto the Deliverer the chained might of Nawami, that shall be his to wield as a spear of revenge.”
    The woman in white walked into the darkness between the beast’s paws.
    Ethrian envisioned those who had imprisoned him, those who had carried off his mother and made insupportable demands upon his father. Only Lord Chin had perished. His henchmen remained alive.
    Shinsan, the Dread Empire, was their spawning ground. He would destroy Shinsan if the power came to his hand.
    “That power is yours now, Deliverer. You need but accept it. Follow Sahmanan. Let her become your first minister in the restoration of Nawami.”
    The woman in white beckoned from the shadows. Ethrian walked toward her. She preceded him into darkness.
    That darkness grew more intense, more tangible with every step. He extended a hand, expecting to encounter the stone between the beast’s huge forelegs.
    He walked many times that distance. He encountered no barrier. The woman vanished. He kept touch only by pursuing a sort of wordless whisper she trailed behind. He could not take her hand. Unlike the stone beast, she had no substance.
    Suddenly, he stepped into light.
    He gaped. And a tale came back, told him by his father’s erstwhile friend, Bragi Ragnarson, the godfather who might have conspired in the destruction of his godson’s family.
    The Hall of the Mountain King. The Under Mountain, or Thunder Mountain as the Trolledyngjans called it. The caverns where a King of the Dead held sway, and sent damned spirits riding the mountain winds in search of mortal prey... 
    He stood on a narrow ledge overlooking a cavern so vast its nether bounds could not be discerned. Sahmanan stood beside him. She gestured. So faintly it was almost inaudible, he heard, “All this is yours to command, Deliverer.”
    They were arrayed in motionless battalions and regiments, in perfectionist rank and file, an army frozen in time. Their number