Servant of a Dark God by John Brown

Author:John Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy - General, Epic, Fantasy fiction, Fiction - Fantasy, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Good and evil
ISBN: 9780765322357
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-09-15T21:47:05.671000+00:00

The road to the glass master’s was broad, but it wasn’t straight, and they were constantly worrying they’d turn a bend and run into some vigilante patrol, but they never did. When they came to the part of the road that crested a hill and gave them a view of the glass master’s vale, Talen heaved a sigh of relief: there were no Fir-Noy to be seen. Just the fields, the main buildings, and the glasshouse belching smoke out of three of its five chimneys.

Talen had walked the whole way. Now he told Nettle to pull up. He drank deeply from the barrel, then dumped the rest over his head. He was more thirsty than ever. And the itch in his legs had grown.

He hadn’t worked anything out of his system. In fact, he wondered if there had been anything in his system to begin with.

“You know the stories of peopled bewitched to dance until they starved,” Talen asked, “until their very bones turned to dust? Do you think it’s possible to curse someone like that?”

“So now our hatchling wasn’t just a post when she kissed you?” asked Nettle.

“She was a post,” said Talen. “It’s just my legs have put me to thinking what could have happened in the night.”

“Who knows?” said Nettle. “If you wake up tomorrow and find yourself doing a chicken trot with Prince Conroy, then I’ll be leaning towards curse.”

Talen shook his head and began down the slope. Partway down the hill, he said, “If Atra comes to the door, I need to have something to say. Otherwise, I’ll be staring at her like a great ox.”

Atra, the glass master’s daughter, had expressed an interest in him at the last harvest dance. Or at least it had seemed she had, and he’d thought about her ever since. He knew it was nothing more than a fancy, but such an arrangement would be good for everyone: Da would get a family member into a clan, Uncle Argoth would keep his promise to his sister, the glass master would be able to tie his interests with a man close to a warlord of the Nine, and Talen, if she accepted him, would be able to serve and ponder one of the most stunning creatures he’d ever beheld.

He remembered that River had told him once the key to conversation is asking helpful questions. Good humor, a few good stories, and a few helpful questions. Not the stupid lines men came up with after a few pints of ale.

“Helpful?” he’d asked.

“Yes,” said River. “A question that makes it easy for the other person to talk.”

“Well, how’s a question going to do that? Either they have something to say or they don’t.”

“No,” River said. “Everyone has something to say. There are some people that are like an irrigation ditch. You pull the stop up and they’ll go on until you shut them off. But others aren’t like that. Other people are like a pond or lake. You’ve first got to make an outlet for them, only then will they flow.

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