All Darkness Met by Glen Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

black bowed slightly. “Well said. I simply meant that it wouldn’t be wise for you to return. We’ve made too much commotion here. Eyes have seen. The men of the woods, the Marena Dimura, are watching. It would be impossible to track all the witnesses. It’ll be simpler for you to disappear.”
    Balfour drew his blade another foot. Rico, unsure what was happening, moved to where he could attack from the side.
    The thin man carefully raised his hands. “No. No. As you say, there must be trust. There must be a mutual concern. Else how can we convert others to our cause?”
    Balfour nodded, but didn’t relax.
    Mocker listened, and through hooded eyes observed. His heart pounded. What dread had befallen him? And why?
    “Rico,” the stranger said, “Take this. It’s gold.” He offered a bag.
    The one-eyed man glanced at Balfour, took the sack, looked inside. “He’s right. Maybe thirty pieces. Itaskian. Iwa Skolovdan.”
    “That should suffice till the moves have begun and it’s safe for you to return,” said the masked man.
    Balfour sheathed his weapon. “All right. I know a placewhere no one could find us. Where they wouldn’t think of looking. You need help with him?” He nudged Mocker with atoe.
    The fat man could feel the wicked grin behind that hideous mask. “That one? That little toad? No. Go on, before his friends hear the news.”
    “Rico, come on.”
    After Balfour and Rico had departed, the tall man stood over Mocker, considering.
    Mocker, being Mocker, had to try, even knowing it futile.
    He kicked.
    The tall man hopped his leg with disdainful ease, reached, touched....
    Mocker’s universe shrank to a point of light which, after a momentary brightness, died. After that he was lost, and time ceased to have meaning.
     

FOUR: Intimations
    Ragnarson dismounted, dropped his reins over a low branch. “Why don’t you guys join me?” he asked as he seated himself against an oak. A cool breeze whispered through the Gudbrandsdal Forest, a Royal Preserve just over the western boundary of the Siege of Vorgreberg. “It’s restful here.”
    He narrowed his eyes to slits, peered at the sun, which broke through momentary gaps in the foliage.
    Turran, Valther, Blackfang, Kildragon, and Ragnarson’s secretary, a scholar from Hellin Daimiel named Derel Prataxis, dismounted. Valther lay down on his belly in new grass, a strand of green trailing from between his teeth. Ragnarson’s foster brother, Blackfang, began snoring in seconds.
    This had begun as a boar hunt. Beaters were out trying to kick up game. Other parties were on either flank, several hundred yards away. But Bragi had left the capital only to escape its pressures. The others understood.
    “Sometimes,” Ragnarson mused, minutes later, “I think we were better off back when our only problem was our next meal.”
    Kildragon, a lean, hard brunet, nodded. “It had its good points. We didn’t have to worry about anybody else.”
    Ragnarson waved a hand in an uncertain gesture, reflecting his inner turmoil. “It’s peaceful out here. No distractions.”
    Kildragon stretched a leg, prodded Blackfang.
    “Uhn? What’s happening?”
    “That’s it,” said Bragi. “Something.” Peace had reigned so long that the first ripples, subtle though they were, had brought him worriedly alert. His companions, too, sensed it.
    Valther grumbled, “I can’t put my finger on it.”
    Everyday life in Vorgreberg had begun showing littlestutters, little stumbles. A general uneasiness haunted everyone, from the Palace to the slums.
    There was just one identifiable cause. The Queen’s indisposition. But Bragi wasn’t telling anyone anything about that. Not even his brother.
    “Something’s happening,” Ragnarson insisted. Prataxis glanced his way, shook his head gently, resumed scribbling.
    The scholars of Hellin Daimiel took subservient posts as a means of obtaining primary source material for their great theses. Prataxis was a historian of the Lesser