Shards of a Broken Sword: The Complete Trilogy by W.R. Gingell

Author:W.R. Gingell [Gingell, W.R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

***

In a grand, high-ceilinged room somewhere in the centre of Shinpo, a pleasant-faced woman attending a well-filled meeting of state suddenly went very pale and ceased to listen to the main speaker. She whispered briefly and urgently to the tall girl beside her and vanished from the room at a genteel trot, her exit hidden by several large, broad-shouldered men and one particularly deadly-sharp woman.

Once in the hall outside, she fairly ran, her elaborate head-dress wobbling dangerously, and arrived via a circuitous route of back allies and secret passages to a comfortable, well-lit library, where a slightly chubby gentleman caught her at the door and embraced her soothingly.

“Mama!” said Zen, surprised into the childish appellation. He was in his usual seat, but he wasn’t reading.

“I thought you were–”

“I was. What happened?”

“The passage has vanished,” said Dai, biting her thumb. “It was just here, and now it’s gone.”

“Did Kako do it, or was it the Keep itself?”

“The Keep,” said Suki worriedly. “It’s closed up completely.”

“Where is Kako?”

Dai looked away. “We think she’s in the seventh Circle.”

“Is the dragon with her?” asked the plump gentleman.

“Of course he is, dear,” said Kako’s mother.

“Probably,” said Zen at the same time. “She’s got the shard, after all.”

“Will that be enough to keep him near her?”

Kako’s mother smiled, as if involuntarily. “That, amongst other things.”

Kako’s father said: “Other things? What other things? What have I missed?”

Dai laughed suddenly. “Never you mind, Father! Do you think you can open another passage?”

“Not a chance,” he said. “How Kako did it in the first place, I haven’t a clue. We’ll have to wait until it opens again.”

Miyoko, her lower lip sticking out, sat down by the curtains that had once contained a passage to the Enchanted Keep but now hid only solid brick. Zen, after a moment’s indecision, did the same. Dai, sighing, dragged a chair closer and threw herself into it, and Suki leant gracefully against the wall. Kako’s mother slid her arms around her husband’s waist in return, allowed her head to sink on his shoulder…and they waited.

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