The Towers Of the Sunset by L.E. Modesitt Jr. Read Free Book Online Page B

been fitted for him. Everything has been packed, including his guitar, except the sword and the last ceremonial outfit he wears. He has saved the Guard blade he has practiced with for the trip. His mother would not deny him the right to a solid blade for self-defense. He hopes.
    Even before the arms-master has left his room, he begins to strip off the green cotton shirt and matching thin leather trousers, ignoring the lingering look from Heldra as he flings them upon the green-and-silver coverlet and begins to pull on the guard leathers. Glancing up, he catches her stare.
    She turns brusquely.
    Creslin shakes his head. “Even Heldra… was Fiera right?” He does not wish to consider the tightness of his mother the Marshall’s words, but he stuffs himself into the heavy leathers more violently than necessary.
    Then he starts to fold the ceremonial outfit before dropping it on the bed. Galen will scuttle in and pack it while he talks with his mother.
    His head still shaking, he opens the door and leaves it open, walking toward the opposite wing of the quarters, past Llyse’s closed door. His sister will not be there but in the field, deep within the winter of the Roof of the World, trying to prove her right and skills to succeed the Marshall-a test she must undertake and overcome each and every year.
    Creslin must worry only about palace intrigue, and about pleasing the sub-Tyrant. He snorts. Not if he can help it. Yet he knows so little about real life beyond the guards, beyond the Roof of the World.
    Before the sound of his knock dies away, the door is opened by a guard, gray-haired and muscled. She lets him enter, glancing at his guard blade.
    He makes his way into the study.
    “Creslin!” The Marshall stands. “Even with those leathers, you look good. Except for the hair. Sooner or later you’ll have to let it grow.”
    “Perhaps. Then again, things may change.”
    She laughs, her manner less formal in the study with only a pair of guards, and those a room away. “Still fighting destiny?”
    Creslin grins ruefully. “Since I have no idea exactly what my destiny will be, I couldn’t say what I’m fighting.”
    She touches his shoulder, then withdraws her hand. “You’ll do well in Sarronnyn, son, if you remember that you can run to destiny, but not from it.”
    “That sounds like a rationalization of fate.”
    She shakes her head. “You need to be off. Shall we go?”
    They proceed back out into the hall and down the stairs. Outside the castle’s front entry, an honor guard awaits.
    The consort swallows. An honor guard? Not including the armed-escort squad? He steps away from the Marshall and toward the single riderless battle pony. The parka he has not worn lies across the saddle, with the cold cap and gloves. Galen has forgotten nothing, except that being a man means more than expertise with domestic details.
    “Have a good journey.”
    Creslin inclines his head as he pulls on the parka. The cap and gloves follow, and he swings into the saddle. The Marshall, in her normal black leathers, stands at the top of the stairs, the wind ruffling her short, gray-streaked black hair.
    Creslin raises his arm in a farewell salute, then flicks the reins.
    The sound of hooves is the loudest noise as the cavalcade heads out through the open gates onto the high stone road across the corner of the Roof of the World and toward the nations below.

XII
    “NOW WHAT ARE you going to do? The last thing we need is an alliance between Westwind and Sarronnyn. It’s bad enough that the Black weaklings are muttering again about our abuse of the Balance. With Ryessa’s power and hold on the southern trade routes, and that mad bitch Dylyss and her guards-”
    “You still don’t understand, do you?”
    “What is there to understand? Ryessa needs some way to keep that… that abomination, her sister, under control, and both Creslin and Megaera need the appearance of being forced into the alliance. We need to keep them apart, and