The New World Read Free Page B

in a white robe, with flowing white hair. Around him, verdant grasses grew up through the snow. The man straightened, his gaze rising from the base of the tower.
    A jolt ran through Keles. “Grandfather?”
    Qiro laughed. “A tower? This is the best you can do? You thought you could supplant me, and all you can raise is a tower?”
    “I never . . . ” Keles shook his head. “Where are we? What is this place?”
    Qiro threw his arms open, and mountains rose to stab through the clouds capping the valley. “This is Anturasixan. It is my world. I created it! I have done what you will never do.”
    “I don’t understand.” Keles leaned against the parapet. Though the stone appeared to be polished granite, it felt cold and wet, like the mud from the moat. “How did I come to be here?”
    “You’re not here. Not yet. But you will be. Soon. Come to me, Keles. You, too, can be a god.”
    Then the tower collapsed, reverting to mud, which splashed over Keles in a viscous wave. Something hard closed around his ankle, pulling him down. Keles kicked something solid, but the hold on his ankle only tightened.
    Keles flailed his hands. They broke the surface. The moat, it has to be! His lungs burned, his flesh tingled. He kicked again, trying to swim to the surface, but the thing kept dragging him deeper.
    Keles’ lungs ached. To breathe was to drown, yet the urge was irresistible.
    I’ve gotten my hands wet . Air bubbled from fiery lungs. What a silly last thought .
    Then something plunged into the moat from above. The pressure on his ankle vanished as strong hands grabbed him by the back of the neck and thigh, then pushed him up through the muck. He broke the surface, sputtering, and sucked in cool air before landing hard and bouncing.
    He tried to stop himself from rolling, but that only hurt his hands. He slammed into the fortress’ wall and slumped over, swiping mud from his eyes.
    A hulking creature emerged from the moat, mud sheeting off his body. The coating did not hide the bony plates on his arms or the hooks at his elbow. Mud dripped from clawed hands and water pasted long black hair against half his face. That face split with a grin that revealed an ivory phalanx of needle-sharp teeth.
    “You must be more careful, Keles Anturasi.” The Viruk’s words came in a deep, gravelly rumble. “One of the Eyeless Ones caught you by the ankle.”
    Keles shook his head. “But there weren’t any present.”
    Rekarafi brushed mud from his shoulders. “Not until you brought one to life.”
    “What?”
    “I was there on the wall, watching. You scooped up mud, then let it drip back. The Eyeless One took shape. It grabbed your ankle and pulled you under.”
    Keles drew his knees up, the wall solid against his back. “But that wasn’t what happened. I was trying to make a sand castle from the mud. All of a sudden I found myself in a tower, facing my grandfather. He wanted me to come to him, which was when the tower collapsed and I was dragged under.”
    The Viruk crouched and touched some of the mud to his tongue. He spat it out again and it steamed on the ground. “This mud is not from here.”
    “I had that same impression.” Keles hugged his knees to his chest. “My grandfather created the Eyeless Ones. I think he shaped them from the mud of the land he created.”
    The Viruk’s dark eyes widened. “He created life from nothing?”
    “So it would appear.”
    “This changes everything.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Rekarafi’s eyes slitted. “If he can make life from nothing, he can just as easily make all life into nothing. And if you cannot stop him, that is exactly what he will do.”

Chapter 3
    P rince Pyrust of Deseirion wanted to laugh. There he stood, nine steps from the Naleni Dragon Throne. Prince Cyron, having lost half an arm to an assassin, sat there waiting to die. Yet, at the other end of the red strip of carpet running to the throne room’s doorway, a small, dark-haired courtesan known