Exile's Return by Raymond E. Feist Read Free Book Online Page A

night he had one particularly vivid dream-memory; a conversation with Leso Varen in the magician’s private chambers. The room reeked of blood and human excrement, and of alien odors from things the magician insisted on mixing and burning in his work area. Kaspar remembered the conversation well, for it had been the first time Varen had suggested to him that he should consider removing those who stood between himself and the crown of Roldem. Kaspar also remembered how appealing he had found the idea.
    But he had awoken from the dream retching from the memory of the stench in the room; at the time he had visited Varen, he had hardly been aware of it, the smell had not bothered him in the slightest. Yet this morning he had sat bolt-upright before the door of the hut, gasping for breath, and had almost disturbed Jorgen.
     
    Kaspar encouraged Jorgen to speak about whatever was on his mind, as his constant prattle sensitized Kaspar to the local language. He was becoming quite conversant, but was also frustrated. For all their good qualities, Jorgen and Jojanna were simple farm people who knew almost nothing of the world in which they lived beyond their farm and the village a few days’ walk to the northwest. It was there they sold their cattle and grain, and from what Kaspar could discern, Bandamin had been considered well-to-do by local standards.
    He had been told about the great desert to the northeast, commanded by a race called the Jeshandi, who were not like the nomads who tried to capture him. They were the Bentu, a people who had migrated from the south in Jojanna’s father’s time. Kaspar calculated that it must have been during the war which had ended with the defeat of the Emerald Queen’s army at Nightmare Ridge in the Western Realm of the Kingdom of the Isles. Olaskon intelligence had gathered as much information as they could when Kaspar’s father had been Duke, and some tidbits had been gleaned from agents working in both the Kingdom and Kesh, but what Kaspar had read left him certain that a large part of the story was never reported.
    What he did know was that a woman known as the Emerald Queen had emerged somewhere to the far west of this continent of Novindus and had waged a war of conquest among the various city states, forging a vast army—which included, according to some reports, giant-sized serpent men—and had gathered a fleet for the sole purpose of invading the Kingdom of the Isles.
    While no reason was forthcoming as to why this had happened, and while it defied all conventional military logic, it had still happened. Krondor had been reduced to mostly rubble and the rebuilding of the Western Realm was still underway nearly thirty years later.
    Perhaps, thought Kaspar as he finished chopping wood, I’ll learn something more about it while I make my way across this land. He looked at the boy and said, “Don’t just stand there. Pick up some wood. I’m not going to carry it all.”
    The boy grumbled good-naturedly as he carried as much as he could: a decent amount of kindling, and Kaspar carried as much as he was able. “I’d give a lot for a horse and wagon,” he said.
    “Father took the horse when he…went away,” said Jorgen, huffing with exertion.
    Kaspar had grasped the various terms for time and now realized that the boy’s father had left three weeks prior to his appearance at their farm. Bandamin had been taking a steer to the village, called Heslagnam, to sell to an innkeeper there. He was then going to purchase some supplies needed for the farm.
    Jojanna and Jorgen had walked to the village when he was three days overdue, only to be told that no one had seen Bandamin. Somewhere between the farm and Heslagnam, the man, his wagon, and the steer had simply vanished.
    Jojanna was reticent to speak on the subject, still hoping after almost two months that her husband might return. Kaspar judged it unlikely. This area had little that passed for law. In theory, there was a covenant