The Shining Ones by David Eddings Read Free Book Online Page B

letters Sparhawk had so laboriously written. ‘We can’t be sure howlong we’ll be gone, your Excellency,’ he said, ‘so you might want to space these out.’
    Norkan nodded. ‘I can supplement them with reports of my own,’ he said, ‘and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always use the talents of the professional forger at the embassy here. He should be able to duplicate Prince Sparhawk’s handwriting after a day or so of practise – well enough to add personal postscripts to my reports, anyway.’
    For some reason Sparhawk found that very shocking.
    ‘May I ask a question?’ Norkan said to Flute.
    ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘I won’t guarantee that I’ll answer, but you can ask.’
    ‘Are our Tamul Gods real?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Norkan sighed. ‘I was afraid of that. I haven’t led what you’d call an exemplary life.’
    ‘Don’t worry, Norkan. Your Gods don’t take themselves very seriously. They’re considered frivolous by the rest of us.’ She paused. ‘They’re fun at parties, though,’ she added. She suddenly giggled. ‘They really irritate the Elene God. He has absolutely no sense of humor, and your Tamul Gods are very fond of practical jokes.’
    Norkan shuddered. ‘I don’t think I really want to know any more about this sort of thing,’ he said. He looked around. ‘I’d strongly advise you to leave town rather quickly, my friends,’ he told them. ‘A republican form of government generates vast quantities of paper. There are questionnaires and forms and permits and licenses for almost everything, and there have to be ten copies of every single one. Nobody in the government wants to really make a decision about anything, so documents are just passed around from hand to hand until they either fall apart or get lost someplace.’
    ‘Who finally does make the decisions?’ Vanion asked.
    ‘Nobody,’ Norkan shrugged. ‘Tegans have learned to get along without a government. Everybody knows what has to be done anyway, so they scribble on enough official forms to keep the bureaucrats busy and then just ignore them. I hate to admit it, but the system seems to work quite well.’ He laughed. ‘There was a notorious murderer who was apprehended during the last century,’ he said. ‘They put him on trial, and he died of old age before the courts could decide whether he was guilty or not.’
    ‘How old was he when they caught him?’ Talen asked.
    ‘About thirty, I understand. You’d really better get started, my friends. That fellow at the head of this wharf has a sort of official expression on his face. You should probably be out of sight before he leafs through that pouch he’s carrying and finds the right set of forms for you to fill out.’
    The Isle of Tega was tidy. It was not particularly scenic, nor did it have that picturesque desolation that sets the hearts of romantics all aflutter. The island produced no economically significant crops, and the small plots of ground under cultivation were devoted to what might be called expanded kitchen gardens. The stone walls that marked off the fields were straight and were all of a uniform height. The roads did not curve or bend, and the roadside barrows were all precisely of the same width and depth. Since the island’s major industry, the collecting of sea-shells, was conducted underwater, there was none of the clutter one customarily sees around workshops.
    The tedious tidiness, however, was offset by a dreadful smell which seemed to hover over everything.
    ‘What is that awful stink?’ Talen said, trying to cover his nostrils with his sleeve.
    ‘Rotting shellfish,’ Khalad shrugged. ‘They must use it for fertilizer.’
    ‘How can they stand to live here with that smell?’
    ‘They’re probably so used to it that they don’t even notice it any more. They want the sea-shells because they can sell them to the Tamuls in Matherion, but people can’t live on a steady diet of oysters and clams, so they have to get rid