Summoner: Book 1: The Novice by Taran Matharu Read Free Book Online Page B

a face as he realised what the material was made from. Barbaric runes scarred it, with the summoner’s neat handwriting below spelling out their pronunciation phonetically.
    Fletcher grinned and began to eat his sausages, savouring every slice. It was hard to keep his eyes from straying back to the grisly page. He knew what he was going to be trying his hand at tonight . . .

9
    Fletcher was not sure why he had bothered sneaking to the graveyard. It was not like anything was going to happen, after all. For one thing, he knew that most commoners found to be adepts exhibited small signs of special abilities even before they were discovered, like the ability to move small objects or even generate a spark. He was pretty sure that the closest to a special ability he had was a talent for rolling his tongue.
    It was exciting nonetheless and perhaps, once he had read the incantation, he would be able to sell it on his next trip to the elven front, with no regrets at not having tried it. He would find Rotherham and split the profits with him, of course. After all, it had been a generous gift and, if anything, it had been Fletcher who was in his debt and not the other way around.
    He sat on a broken tombstone and laid the book on an old tree stump a few feet away. He had been of two minds as to whether he should leave the book at home or take it with him. Didric and his goons might have broken in when he was away, or mugged him if they caught him on the way to the graveyard. In the end he had brought it, if only because he was loathe to let it out of his sight.
    The scroll was leathery in his palm, and Fletcher realised with a flash of horror that the symbols must have been carved into the victim’s flesh to scar over, before skinning him alive. He shuddered at the gruesome thought and tried to hold it with as few fingers as possible. The surface was surprisingly dry and dusty.
    The words on the scroll were nothing more than a list of syllables, more of a musical do re mi than any kind of orc language. Then again, he wasn’t even sure what language summoning used; perhaps the orcs had translated what he was about to read into their own writings from another language entirely. On top of that, James Baker had written that this demon had already been captured by a shaman and somehow ‘gifted’. Who knew what that entailed? Still, he would read the words and then get back to his warm bed, happy in the knowledge that he had tried.
    ‘ Di rah go mai lo fa lo go rah lo  . . .’
    He began to speak, feeling slightly ridiculous and glad nobody was watching him, except for, perhaps, the ghosts of people long dead.
    The words flowed from his tongue as if he knew them by heart, and he could not stop even if he wanted to, so great was the draw to speak them loud and clear. A heady, drunken feeling suffused his body like a warm cloak, yet instead of the haze that beer brought on, he felt a perfect clarity, like staring into the placid waters of a mountain lake. In Fletcher’s mind, the words were more of a mystic equation, each one repeating, in varying cycles, that were almost melodious in their utterance.
    ‘ Fai lo so nei di roh  . . .’
    The words droned on and on relentlessly, until at last he came to the endmost line. As the final words were uttered, he felt his mind shift in a way he recognised, that split-second feeling of razor sharpness that he experienced in the moment of his arrow’s release, yet twice what he had ever felt then. It was both familiar and alien to experience the world in such a way. Colours became vivid and almost iridescent. The small winter flowers that grew among the graves seemed to glow with ethereal light, so bright were they in his vision.
    As his heart thundered in his chest he felt a tugging at his mind, at first tentative, then insistent and so powerful he fell from his perch to his knees.
    When he lifted his head he saw the cover of the book glimmer. His eyes widened as the lines of the