The Red Sea Read Free Page A

annoying injuries where the only treatment is time."
    Dante opened her coat and made a quick assessment for other wounds that could be treated through mundane means. Other than a few small scabs on her palms and knuckles, she looked perfectly fine—until he got to her shins. There, her brown skin was striped with finger-sized lines as black as the inside of the mountain tunnel.
    "For future reference, that's what a nether burn looks like." He pulled a sheet up to cover the woman's shoulders and turned to Stedden. "Tell me everything she told you."
    Apparently, the woman had been staggering down the southern foothills toward the city. Found by a small-scale tea farmer, she'd spoken Dante's name in an accent the farmer had never heard before, refusing to say anything else. Concerned for her well-being, the farmer had escorted her via ferry to Lolligan's. There, she'd spoken to Stedden, giving the same details the monk had relayed to Dante.
    Dante plunked down in a chair. "I suppose she said nothing of the message itself."
    "No." Stedden moved to a desk at the front of the room. "However, she seemed to understand she might not make it to your arrival. She made me swear to Arawn that I wouldn't open it. And then she gave me this."
    He picked up a wooden rod and brought it to Dante. Roughly ten inches long and two in diameter, it was a piece of polished wood, bright brown and warm orange-reds. It appeared to be seamless, but it was light enough it had to be hollow. After a great deal of fooling around, Dante discovered it twisted open in the middle. It carried a rolled-up sheet of paper inside it.
    He skimmed its contents. "I'll be in my quarters. If she wakes, or shows any change in her condition, come to me at once."
    Stedden bobbed his head and sat down beside the foreign woman's bed. Dante exited and climbed the stairs to the much larger and nicer room Lolligan had assigned to him. He locked the door, sat on his bed, and unrolled the paper. It was a single sheet, covered on both sides. It was written in Mallish. Had his father been able to write? He couldn't remember. He could hardly remember the man's face.
    He read the note in full. He let the page rest on his leg, remembering, then read it anew time, lingering on each line. He dropped the note on the bed and went to the window. Light shimmered on the lake. He didn't see it. Instead, he saw the grassy fields of a village outside Bressel.
    He felt something in the room with him. A presence. The hair stood on his arms and neck. Dante gathered the nether in his hands and turned toward the door. Across the room, a blond man stood before him, a sword hanging from each hip.
    "Lyle's balls," Dante said, dispersing the shadows. The bolt on the door was still firmly locked. "You walked through the wall, didn't you?"
    Blays shrugged. "Like you wouldn't if you could?"
    "What if I'd had someone in here?"
    The other man folded his arms. "Like who?"
    "Like, say, a woman?"
    "Then I would have had a heart attack and died. Sparing you and your imaginary companion the embarrassment."
    "Let's return to the antiquated practice of knocking, shall we? Unless you'd prefer that I enter your room by blasting the wall down."
    "That would be rude. It's Lolligan's wall, not mine." Blays rocked on his heels. "So. Is it true?"
    Dante eyed him. "What have you heard?"
    "They say a strange woman staggered out of the mountains. And that she's here on behalf of your father. Shocking."
    "I know. I haven't seen him in nearly twenty years."
    "That, and I always assumed you were hatched, not born."
    "I think it's real." He nodded at the note on the bed. "No one else would know some of those details."
    Blays gestured to it. "Can I?"
    "I'm surprised you asked first."
    "It's much easier to ask for permission knowing you can always sneak in later." He picked up the page, eyes tracking the words. When they'd met as teenagers, Blays hadn't been able to read at all. The fact he was now literate in both Mallish and