They bring truth that two Greycloaks stole from the gods. If that truth is freely and generously bestowed to all, then we will at last be free of our masters who so jealously guarded it. There will be nothing you will fear to dare. But if it is kept locked away in a miser's treasure house, there will come the fated day when all will curse the ones who slew Ba 'land, and call his lashes a father's stern kindness."
My brother's warning had been quite clear. But had it been ignored? Was this the source of the troubles now threatening Orissa? Was this why my sisters of the Guard were in grave peril? The reason all the Anteros had been slain save my little niece Emilie?
Maranonia hadn't said. I felt my ire stir anew when I thought of the goddess. Why couldn't she have been plain? Why had she kept all a mystery, other than telling me my task in the vaguest of terms?
I polished my casting bones with angry vigor. The gods are such a maddening lot, I thought. They sit in their heavenly palaces, posing and deposing, judging this, punishing that, bidding and forbidding all the live long day. And it's up to us poor mortals to dash about trying to make sense of it all.
Well, she'd been plain about three things at least:
I had one year to set things straight.
Failure would result in a great disaster.
And the Lyre Bird was behind it all.
Novari—the beautiful and powerful succubus who'd nearly destroyed me once. I'd lost an eye and a hand in that war.
If Novari was my foe, I'd need more wits and tricks than even the last Archon of Lycanth had required.
I went back to my self-training, doubling all my efforts. The key to Novari, I thought, must lie in all the events that led to our first meeting.
I cast my mind back ...
Remembering.
there are few alive who knew my brother. He's a man remembered mostly in books. Some of the treasures from his travels are displayed in our museums, and his likeness can be seen in portraits, busts, and statues that gather bird droppings in the parks. He has no tomb—no grand sepulchre—to mark an Orissan of such renown, for his ashes had been mixed with Janela Greycloak's and, following the wishes of both, sprinkled on the waters of the river he loved that flows past our city to the sea.
I doubt his name is spoken much by the average man or woman, many of whom are the children and the grandchildren of the slaves he set free. Oh, you'll hear it now and then in phrases that've fallen into the language. "Lucky as Amalric Antero," is one. And if you say, "You have my Amalric on that," it means a gilt-edged assurance or IOU. Most people probably don't even know the origin of such sayings. One of my favorite sarcasms is, "Thinks he knows more'n Amalric Antero." My brother would've seen double irony in that phrase. Amalric, more than any I've known, enjoyed irony.
He'd put his eyes on more places and things than any other. He'd faced and overcome the greatest of obstacles and dangers. He'd experienced much sadness in his life, including betrayal by his greatest friend and, late in his years, by
his only living child. But he'd also known love and known it deeply.
Amalric used to say that Janos Greycloak was the wisest man he'd ever met because the learned Greycloak knew how ignorant he really was. This was doubly true of my brother, who in the end knew more than even Janos.
So I'm sister to a legend. Amalric Antero, the greatest adventurer and discoverer, merchant prince—and some say even scholar—in our history.
To me he'll always be the boy with fiery hair and skin so fair it showed his every emotion. He was a mischief as a child, a wastrel as a youth, and I think the kindest person I ever met.
As a boy he'd do small favors for scullery servants and young lords alike, but in such a way that the other person would never know a favor had been done and chalk it up to good fortune. When he grew older, overcoming all the temptations of wealthy sloth, he ventured all for friendship. He was betrayed
My brother's warning had been quite clear. But had it been ignored? Was this the source of the troubles now threatening Orissa? Was this why my sisters of the Guard were in grave peril? The reason all the Anteros had been slain save my little niece Emilie?
Maranonia hadn't said. I felt my ire stir anew when I thought of the goddess. Why couldn't she have been plain? Why had she kept all a mystery, other than telling me my task in the vaguest of terms?
I polished my casting bones with angry vigor. The gods are such a maddening lot, I thought. They sit in their heavenly palaces, posing and deposing, judging this, punishing that, bidding and forbidding all the live long day. And it's up to us poor mortals to dash about trying to make sense of it all.
Well, she'd been plain about three things at least:
I had one year to set things straight.
Failure would result in a great disaster.
And the Lyre Bird was behind it all.
Novari—the beautiful and powerful succubus who'd nearly destroyed me once. I'd lost an eye and a hand in that war.
If Novari was my foe, I'd need more wits and tricks than even the last Archon of Lycanth had required.
I went back to my self-training, doubling all my efforts. The key to Novari, I thought, must lie in all the events that led to our first meeting.
I cast my mind back ...
Remembering.
there are few alive who knew my brother. He's a man remembered mostly in books. Some of the treasures from his travels are displayed in our museums, and his likeness can be seen in portraits, busts, and statues that gather bird droppings in the parks. He has no tomb—no grand sepulchre—to mark an Orissan of such renown, for his ashes had been mixed with Janela Greycloak's and, following the wishes of both, sprinkled on the waters of the river he loved that flows past our city to the sea.
I doubt his name is spoken much by the average man or woman, many of whom are the children and the grandchildren of the slaves he set free. Oh, you'll hear it now and then in phrases that've fallen into the language. "Lucky as Amalric Antero," is one. And if you say, "You have my Amalric on that," it means a gilt-edged assurance or IOU. Most people probably don't even know the origin of such sayings. One of my favorite sarcasms is, "Thinks he knows more'n Amalric Antero." My brother would've seen double irony in that phrase. Amalric, more than any I've known, enjoyed irony.
He'd put his eyes on more places and things than any other. He'd faced and overcome the greatest of obstacles and dangers. He'd experienced much sadness in his life, including betrayal by his greatest friend and, late in his years, by
his only living child. But he'd also known love and known it deeply.
Amalric used to say that Janos Greycloak was the wisest man he'd ever met because the learned Greycloak knew how ignorant he really was. This was doubly true of my brother, who in the end knew more than even Janos.
So I'm sister to a legend. Amalric Antero, the greatest adventurer and discoverer, merchant prince—and some say even scholar—in our history.
To me he'll always be the boy with fiery hair and skin so fair it showed his every emotion. He was a mischief as a child, a wastrel as a youth, and I think the kindest person I ever met.
As a boy he'd do small favors for scullery servants and young lords alike, but in such a way that the other person would never know a favor had been done and chalk it up to good fortune. When he grew older, overcoming all the temptations of wealthy sloth, he ventured all for friendship. He was betrayed
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