The River of Shadows by Robert V S Redick Read Free Book Online Page B

basin, and Neda, the older sister, approaching with a sponge.
    The hug she gave him was pure instinct, as were the tears she shed in a single, toothy sob. But before he could return the embrace she released him and stepped back, glaring through her tears. A
sfvantskor
could not put her arms around him. A sister could not do otherwise.

 

The Orfuin Club
     
    Who has sown the dark waters in sorghum and rye?

Who has whispered to gravestones and heard their reply?

In the deluge of autumn, who has danced and stayed dry?

Let him gaze on the River, and sigh
.
—Anonymous Hymn, VASPARHAVEN
     
    “Arunis, what do you fear?”
    The speaker was a short, round-faced, potbellied man with thick glasses, dressed in clothes the color of autumn wheat. In both hands he cradled a large cup of tea, the steam of which billowed white in the chilly breeze on the terrace. On the table before him a red marble paperweight held down one sheet of parchment. At the man’s feet squirmed a small creature, something like an armadillo, except that it lacked any obvious head, and instead of limbs, two feathery antennae and countless tentacle-like feet emerged from its shell. The creature was foraging for insects; as it moved in the torchlight it became invisible, transparent and darkly opaque by turns.
    “I fear that one of us will expire before the woman arrives,” said a second figure—a tall, gaunt man in a black coat and whitescarf, ravenous of mouth and eye, who stood near the doorway letting into the club, orange firelight on his left cheek, cold and darkness on his right. “Otherwise, nothing at all. I have no time for fear. Besides, there is no safer house than yours, Orfuin. Safety is your gift to all comers.”
    The doorway was framed by leafy vines, within which a keen observer might glimpse movement, and now and then a tiny form of man or woman, running along a stem, or peering from a half-hidden window the size of a stamp. From within the club came music—accordion, fiddle, flute—and the drowsy chatter of the patrons. It was always late at the Orfuin Club; by daylight the tavern’s many entrances could not be found.
    “Safety from the world without,” corrected the potbellied man, “but if you bring your own doom within these walls, you can hardly expect them to protect you. What is that thing in your hand, wizard?”
    “A product of a sorcery beyond my knowledge,” said Arunis, displaying the shiny, slightly irregular metal cube. “
Ceallraí
, it is called, or
mintan, batori, pilé
. The lamp you keep on the table on the third floor draws its fire from some source within the metal. It is a feeble sorcery and does not last. This one is dead; the goat-faced creature who wipes your tables gave it to me.”
    “That is why he is always opening the lamp.” The man called Orfuin chuckled. “It was in his sack of trinkets, when he came to me so long ago, fleeing assassins in his own world. He loves that ugly lamp. Arunis, you resemble a human being; did you begin life as such?”
    Arunis scowled, then hurled the metal object into the darkness beyond the terrace. “What can be keeping her? Does she think I have all night?”
    Orfuin took a languorous sip of tea. He moved the paperweight, glanced briefly at the parchment. “You are not a frequent guest,” he said to Arunis, “but you are of long standing. And in all the time you have been coming here I have observed no change. You are impatient. Never glad of where you are. Never cognizant that it may be better than where you are going.”
    Arunis looked directly at the man for the first time, and there was no love in his glance, only pride and calculation. “You
will
see a change,” he said.
    The little animal scurried under Orfuin’s chair. The innkeeper looked down into his tea with an air of disappointment. Then helowered his hand and scratched the little creature along the edge of its shell.
    “I thought all
yddeks
had been exterminated,” said the mage, “but now