A Path to Coldness of Heart by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

foreigner would not be unusual. He could hire on with a caravan. And he could enjoy some real food for a change.
    His fourth day headed north, working back eastward in search of a ford across a small tributary, he stumbled onto a coracle hidden in the undergrowth. There was no one around. The coracle was neither booby-trapped nor cursed. It was just a tool belonging to someone with a penchant for going unnoticed. A gift from God.
    ...
    Nepanthe stepped back from behind Varthlokkur’s right shoulder. “That was cleverly done.”
    “I thought so myself.”
    “I’m going to go bake sweet cakes for the kids.”
    The wizard grunted. “You do that.” He wondered how indifferent a mother Mist could be. She had not yet, insofar as he could tell, made the least effort to find her children or to determine their welfare.
    It was possible, of course, that she knew they were with their aunt and were, therefore, already as safe as they could be in this dark world.

    †

CHAPTER FOUR
    1017 AFE:
    DREAD REALM
    T he Empress and two bodyguards left portals in the transfer staging chamber of a tower once owned by the Karkha family of Throyes. The duty section had received a warning only minutes earlier. Men were still scurrying around, trying to make the place more presentable. Officer in Charge, Candidate Lein She, was still fumbling with his laces. He had had no time to don his mask.
    Mist’s bodyguards made their disapproval obvious.
    Mist had no such sentiments. It was unreasonable to expect the tower and garrison to be drill ground perfect at short notice.
    She conversed briefly with a portal attendant while the Candidate pulled himself together. “No visitors? Not even a random attempt to come through, or to make contact?” She examined the transfer log. Only Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i had visited since the tower became the place where special prisoners were held.
    The Karkha no longer existed. Their tower, which rose without outer defenses, could be accessed only by a ladder that had to be lowered from a doorway two stories above the street. It was invulnerable to the normal city threats: riots, jealous rivals, and local politics. It was not designed to withstand military operations.
    Lein She had himself together. The Empress said, “Good evening, Candidate. Your logs appear to be in order.”
    “Thank you, O Celestial.”
    Mist was taken aback. Was he making mock? No one had used that title since her father and his twin, the Princes Thaumaturge, had overcome their father. Celestial had been one of Tuan Hoa’s many titles.
    “I’m not my grandfather, Candidate. Relax. I’m just here to see the prisoner.”
    “Uh… Which one… Great One?”
    “You’re holding more than one?”
    “Seven. All politicals.”
    “The westerner.”
    “This way. I’ll have refreshments brought.”
    She ignored a temptation to be malicious. “Tea and rice cakes. Then show these two to the kitchen. Feed them lots of meat.”
    Legionary discipline triumphed all round. No one questioned her decision to see the prisoner alone. But, then, no one thought the Empress might need help.
    ...
    Ragnarson believed he understood the caged tiger’s mood. In the main, it would be rage.
    It had been a while since he had been installed here, wherever here might be. He had fallen asleep in a place where they had healed his war wounds. He had awakened here with no sense of time having passed. The few keepers he saw were strangers uninterested in chatting.
    He was not uncomfortable. His cell was an oval room thirty feet on its long axis, twenty on that with the one flattened side. There were three tiny windows. Each overlooked an unfamiliar city. The windows faced north, south, and east. There was no window in the flat west wall. Each window boasted thin bars and a vigorous sorcery that kept out all odor and noise. He thought he was about eighty feet above street level in an area that was sealed off.
    Only once had he seen anyone down there, and that had been