Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming by Van Allen Plexico Read Free Book Online Page A

nervous about staying in one place for too long.
    “So Vorthan working closely with Baranak is a new development?” I asked.
    Malachek nodded.
    “Oh, yes. Vorthan was never part of the inner circle.”
    He puffed on his pipe, a cloud of smoke floating over his head.
    “It would make sense, though, at least at this time,” he continued. “If the Fountain had to be repaired in some manner, our god of toil would surely be the one to turn to.”
    I nodded and mulled this over. Then another question—one I should have considered much earlier—came to mind.
    “Why might the Fountain have stopped flowing at all? I had thought it a possibility when the Power abandoned me in exile, but there was precious little I could do about it then. For all I knew, they had found some way to cut me off, specifically. I did not discover the truth until recently.”
    “I’ve assumed it to have been a natural phenomenon,” he said. “Perhaps some sort of outside interference, or something diverting it at its source, about which we know next to nothing, even after all this time.”
    I considered this.
    “What if someone wanted to block it off intentionally? Would it be possible?”
    “Intentionally?” His eyes widened, and he puffed on his pipe again, smoke now wreathing about him like a cocoon. “It would be extremely difficult to hold back the flood,” Malachek said, “but not impossible, I think. But it would require very careful work and very precise engineering knowledge of the Fountain.”
    We looked at one another then, the same thought passing through our minds simultaneously. The same face.
    “But… why?” Malachek asked, almost incredulous. “Just to allow the murder of the gods? What gain could there possibly be, from such a thing?”
    I had a few ideas along those very lines, and started to reply, when all about us the flickering ghost-guardians froze in their tracks and vanished, instantly replaced by frenetically swirling lights. A loud wail echoed from every room in the castle.
    I looked up, my first thoughts of the three humans who had accompanied me.
    “What have they gotten into?” I asked, rising to my feet.
    “No, it is an external alert,” Malachek replied over the blaring noise. “Someone approaches. Someone powerful.”
    “That would be our cue, then.”
    The humans raced in from the adjoining room, Cassidy still holding a plate of food in one hand and a drink in the other, eating and imbibing as much as he could while the opportunity lasted. I had known a few men and women like him during my exile, and I found I liked him more than I had previously thought.
    “What is it?” Evelyn asked.
    All three humans wore questioning expressions.
    “Time to go,” I told them.
    Malachek gestured toward a rear door and I moved to follow him.
    “Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your advice,” I said. “It was most welcome.”
    “I hope I have been of some small assistance,” he replied, frowning, “though I have taken little comfort from our conversation.”
    He led us quickly into a small sitting room.
    “Perhaps I can also help you along your way.”
    The wall in one area was recessed slightly. At a gesture on his part, the stone seemed to melt, falling away in liquid globs to reveal an opening.
    I peered through and saw naught but darkness.
    “A bolt hole,” I observed. “But to where?”
    Malachek smiled the most devious smile I had ever seen him attempt.
    “To your own private cosmos—eventually,” he replied.
    “You mean…?”
    I looked through again, then back at him.
    “Your hideaway,” he said. “Quite so.”
    I eyed him suspiciously.
    “That would be my secret hideaway,” I said, wondering which of them he meant.
    “Secret to most,” he replied, “but not to all.”
    I could not help but laugh.
    “And you’ve known about it all this time.”
    “Certainly,” he replied, “though I’ve told no one else.”
    He shrugged.
    “I had made preparations either way when you