Jalia in the North (Jalia - World of Jalon) by John Booth

Author:John Booth [Booth, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Booth Enterprises
Published: 2013-03-28T07:00:00+00:00

A week later, Lonny asked Jalia to find out what Teague was doing, as she was frightened that he might decide to try and take her back. Jalia was told Teague had come into town herding his cattle and sold them to another farmer. He said he had decided to leave Buran and seek his fortune elsewhere.

It was remarked on by the players that he hadn’t visited the brothel, as this was his usual practice, and that he had been walking with a pronounced limp. Jalia smirked at this information and hoped he would stay limp for a long, long time.

It was later that day she became aware of an old man sitting at a table in the corner of the room. He talked to himself incessantly and sometimes shouted out randomly. When she asked, the other players proved reticent to say anything about him. After some prompting, Gasporin, finally told her the story.

“Faflin and his two sons went searching for treasure in the Caldorney Waste. They went in the spring four years ago. He came back alone in late summer almost starved to death. I built him a coffin in anticipation, but he recovered, if you can call how he is recovered. He said ghosts caught him and his sons and that he was the only one to escape.” Gasporin took a big swig of the strong liquor everyone in Buran drank.

Gasporin was a thin, slim and empty-eyed man who was the last person that Jalia could imagine would believe in ghosts. She waited for him to give some sign that he thought that the man had gone mad, but it didn’t come.

“You don’t believe him, do you?” she asked, grinning at the thought of an undertaker believing in such things. After all, how could he do his job if he did?

“The Caldorney Waste is not a laughing matter, young lady.”

“What is this Waste that it makes a grown man believe in ghosts?” Jalia asked when she realized he didn’t intend to say any more on the matter.

The other players saw that they wouldn’t be able to get back to a decent card game until Jalia was told what there was to know about the waste and badgered a reluctant Gasporin to tell her about it.

“Very well,” Gasporin said, taking another heavy drink of liquor. “The story my father told me was handed down from his father and so on from the time when the Magician Kings ruled the world.”

“In those days there were Fairie in the world. Big, strong evil creatures, who were neither man nor beast but believed themselves superior to any man, including the Magician Kings themselves. They made it clear that if any human was to harm one of their kind, then many would suffer in retribution.”

“I heard fairies had the heads of animals and were able to perform magic,” Kaydar the blacksmith interrupted. “They could only be killed if you cut off their heads and that an ordinary sword wouldn’t work. You had to use a magic one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.