The Invisible Chains - Part 2: Bonds of Fear by Andrew Ashling Read Free Book Online Page A

we were coming back to our barrack? I’m
    soaked to the skin.”
    Obyann tried to shake himself dry.
    “I, on the other hand,” Arranulf said sarcastically, “managed to
    tiptoe between the raindrops and remain as dry as dust.”
    He hung his drenched mantle on a peg near the door.
    “Hi, guys. Is it raining?” Rahendo, who had been reading at the
    table, asked.
    “No, we went for a swim, fully clothed, just for the heck of it, you
    unbelievable nitwit,” Obyann growled. “Are you reading your letters
    again?”
    “Oh no. These are new ones. I was just reading the one from
    Alanda, my oldest sister.”
    Obyann snorted.
    “New ones?” he exclaimed, exasperated. “There hasn’t happened
    enough in the whole world to fill all those pages. What are they writing
    about? Every piss every cow has taken in the whole viscountcy of
    Eldorn since you left?”
    He stormed into his room. Arranulf went to his and returned a
    few moments later, drying his hair with a towel with one hand, and
    carrying a piece of parchment in the other.
    Bonds of Fear
    53
    “Rahendo, two strange things have happened. First read this, if
    you would be so kind. I found it on my bed.”
    He handed the piece of parchment over.
    “Oh, this is deplorable, most deplorable,” Rahendo lamented
    after he had read it.
    “I agree,” Arranulf stated calmly.
    “Yes, most deplorable, he has spelled your name totally wrong.”
    He held out the parchment. On it, in great, clumsy capitals, was
    written ‘Landamir sux dix.’
    “Most deplorable. I taught him how to write all our names only
    last week and he has already forgotten.”
    He looked at Arranulf as if the world were coming to an end and
    it was all his fault.
    “That’s what you find deplorable?” Arranulf said, raising his
    eyebrows. “What about the sux dix part?”
    “Oh, that too, but, you see, I thought the whole cks-concept
    was just too complicated for him at the moment, and so I haven’t
    explained it yet. That is not really his fault.”
    “Never mind the cks-concept,” Arranulf said patiently. “What
    about the meaning of the words?”
    “That’s obvious. Actually, it is quite clever of him to use the x.
    He already knows the x, you see. It was the first letter I taught him,
    because basically it is just a cross and anybody can make a cross.
    Really, it’s quite creative. The meaning stays perfectly clear. Of
    course, it won’t do. I’ll have to teach him the correct way of writing
    those words.”
    “No, my little spelling Mukthar. The meaning of the words. Not
    the way they are written.”
    54
    Andrew Ashling
    “Oh... He obviously wants to convey that you like taking the penis
    of other guys in your mouth and then sucking on them. Oh... Oh...”
    He looked up at Arranulf in utter shock.
    “Oh... Oh...” Arranulf mimicked him. “Look, I don’t want this kind
    of message appearing, nailed to every wall in Lorseth.”
    “No, indeed, you don’t,” Rahendo commiserated. He looked at
    Arranulf as at a hopelessly doomed man. “Oh, Nulfie, don’t be mad at
    him. He really is a good guy. He just doesn’t like to show it. And he is
    not like us. That’s not his fault. He was born that way.”
    “Yeah, as long as he doesn’t use the noble art of writing to make
    lewd messages about me, I couldn’t care less how he was born.”
    “Tattling about my birth again, Landemere?” Obyann said in a
    threatening tone, coming out of his room.
    “Aha,” Arranulf exclaimed, pointing at the open door. “The second
    strange thing. The latch of my door seems to have mysteriously gone
    missing, while your door suddenly has two of them. Care to explain,
    Ramaldah?”
    Obyann shrugged.
    “Nothing mysterious about it. I took your latch and fitted it to my
    door.”
    “You know about carpentry?” Rahendo asked.
    “We know about a lot of things in Ramaldah. You would be
    surprised. Like we know how to predict a storm. We can practically
    smell it in the air. And this night we