Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page A

“What James means is that, well . . . I’ve been reading about these creatures my entire life.” Then he saw the old man shaking his head. “I . . . haven’t been?”
    â€œWhatever you’ve been reading is tales retold, diluted, watered down, and gotten wrong, and with major pieces of them left out. That I can promise ya. Written by poseurs who heard stories from people what heard other stories. Ya want the real facts? Go to the source.”
    â€œAnd the Library is the source?”
    â€œOne of ’em, aye.”
    â€œWell . . . uhm . . . thank you,” said Thomas, and he stuck out his hand to shake that of the coachman. The coachman, rather than taking it, looked at it suspiciously and turned, shaking his head. He hitched the horses to a post at the depot, and then walked away.
    â€œWe’re not doing it, are we?” said James the moment that the coachman was out of earshot.
    â€œI don’t see why not,” said Thomas readily.
    â€œWell, how about that there’s snow up there, which probably means that it’s damned cold. And that the person who suggested we do it is some guy who drives horses for a living.”
    â€œAnd he’s also the first adult not to treat me like I’m an idiot.”
    â€œYes, but he treated me like I’m an idiot.”
    â€œMaybe, but that doesn’t bother me as much.” Thomas grinned. “Come on.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œTo get some walking staffs. Also some gloves and wraps for our boots. Wouldn’t want to freeze our feet or hands off.”
    â€œYou realize we could die up there.”
    â€œAt least we’d wind up well preserved.”
    With that, he headed off toward the local market. James reluctantly followed, muttering to himself about cold weather and coachmen who obviously didn’t know when to keep their big mouths shut.

Chapter 4

    JAMES HAD NEVER SEEN ANYTHING like it.
    That, in and of itself, wasn’t all that surprising. Anything that he was witnessing that didn’t look like either a run-down slum of a neighborhood or a moderately fancy manor—the two environs in which he had spent his fairly sheltered life—was by definition outside the realm of James’s experience and thus was unlike anything he had ever seen. The more correct way to think of it was that it was unlike anything he had ever considered imaginable. In point of fact, the town of Windside seemed insane in its conception, to say nothing of its very existence. It was a town that by all rights should not have been there at all because James couldn’t fathom why it was there.
    â€œWho the hell would want to live here?” he gasped as he watched his own breath drift from his mouth. He drew his cape more tightly around himself and was grateful for the gloves and boots that were keeping their extremities warm, or at least moderately so.
    It had indeed taken them a full day and part of a night to reach Mistpeak, and they had found a convenient cave at the base of the mountain to camp in overnight. This was luxurious by contrast considering some of the places they had wound up camping during their sojourn thus far, because although Thomas did indeed have money with him, they had had to be judicious in its spending and thus had spent many a night sleeping under the stars. Still, even though the cave was relatively luxurious in comparison to their unsheltered stays, James kept waking up every so often, convinced that some large creature that had already claimed the cave for its domicile was going to wander in and press its territorial rights. Fortunately enough, that did not occur, and the only menace James had to face that night was Thomas’s occasional, but nonetheless fearsome, snoring.
    When the night had rolled over into the morning, they had emerged from the cave, stretched, eaten the remains of some heavily salted beef they had picked up at the market the day before, and then set out