Atlantis Rising by T.A. Barron Read Free Book Online

with nobody chasing him, cursing him, or trying to kill him. It wouldn’t last long, he knew—these moments never did—but that made it all the more precious.
    He lay back on his elbows, keeping the still-warm pie on his lap. Sure, he’d lost another good throwing knife in grabbing it. But it was a most worthy cause! So he’d just have to find himself another knife, as he’d done many times before. This very afternoon, in fact, he could easily fetch one from an unsuspecting peddler in the market square.
    Of course, he’d need to be extra cautious after his busy day. After all, he had not only stolen Grukarr’s belt buckle and humiliated the priest in public, he had also left a trail of extremely angry temple guards around the City. And that was just the beginning!
    Now he’d also stolen the Divine Monk’s precious pie. In doing so, he’d violated at least a dozen laws, defiled the sacred temple, committed sacrilege on a high holiday, and—oh yes—totally destroyed the Divine Monk’s dining room. Not to mention outraged the two most vengeful and dangerous people in the country, Grukarr and High Priestess Araggna.
    He grinned.
A fine day’s work.
    Gazing at the City wall, he felt satisfied that he was, indeed, all alone. From this spot, he could see from one end of the settlement to the other—though not as far beyond its borders as he’d seen from atop the bell tower. Still, if any guards tried to pursue him, he’d notice them in plenty of time to escape.
    For centuries, this community at the edge of the Deg Boesi River had been the country’s capital. In fact, it had long been called Ellegandia City. Then the current Divine Monk, in his typically humble way, had renamed it the City of Great Powers. (Whether he’d done that to honor the powerful spirits of the immortal realm, or to honor himself and his entourage, who were such great powers among mortals, nobody was certain.)
    Yet despite its grandiose name, this place still felt a lot like a village. Sure, it was by far the largest settlement in the country, the site of the Divine Monk’s temple, and the seat of government. But its life and people and rhythms were still much like those of any other village in Ellegandia.
    Of course, Promi reminded himself as he chewed on a buttery edge of crust, that wasn’t to say that Ellegandia was like anywhere else in the world. All the stories about Ellegandia celebrated the country’s uniqueness. Its very name originally meant “a land alone” or “a place apart.” Of course, nobody could be sure those stories were true, since no one from Ellegandia had ever traveled to other lands and returned to describe them. But Promi felt a strong instinct that his country was, in fact, very special. Maybe even, as the legends said, unique among all the other places on Earth.
    Now, some of that specialness stemmed from simple geography—from being so utterly remote. Shielded on three sides by stormy seas and sheer cliffs, and on the fourth side by an impassable mountain range that separated Ellegandia from the rest of the continent—the land mass some people called Africa—it was a lonely, forgotten place. A kind of island, though one that was still attached to land.
    On top of that, Divine Monks had decreed since the beginning of history that nobody could ever leave the country, on pain of eternal torment by the Great Powers. The reason? So that no one outside this realm would ever hear about Ellegandia’s riches . . . and be tempted to try to steal them. For the most ancient prophets had warned the Divine Monks that Ellegandia held treasures found nowhere else on Earth.
    Those treasures were, indeed, vast. Yet they didn’t come just in the form of shiny jewels, colorful cloths, and precious metals. Such things existed here, but they were the very least of the country’s riches. What really made Ellegandia special, what really made it so blessed by the Great Powers, was the abundance of something