The Councillor by E. J. Beaton

Author:E. J. Beaton [Beaton, E. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780756416997
Google: loauzQEACAAJ
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

• • •

The serpent of the Flavantine ran through a world where the bustle and sound of trade disappeared entirely, bordered on each side by a bounteous green bank. Lysande strolled northward with Chidney and Litany, watching rowers skim over the water in long boats and dip their oars, still thinking on her meeting with Three. She spotted players bent over tactos-boards in a pavilion by the water, staring intently as they slid the pieces back and forth. For a moment, she yearned to do the same; everything became much clearer when she was playing tactos, as if she was looking at a world of glass. She was about to turn away when she picked out a face among the spectators.

She moved toward the crowd, ignoring Chidney’s “Councillor?” and breaking into a run. By the time she arrived, the figure was gone.

“See something?” Litany said, softly, coming to hover beside her.

“Only a ghost.”

“If it’s a Rhimese ghost, it might charge you for the haunting.” Chidney grinned as she sidled up to Litany.

Lysande stared for a few seconds more, waiting for another glimpse, but only the Rhimese remained, talking among themselves. “Yes,” she said, “perhaps we had better avoid the fee.”

She had probably imagined the face. It would not be the first time she had hoped.

Chidney drew her sword while they walked up the steps toward the vast dome of the Academy at the northern end, but at Lysande’s prompting, she sheathed her blade again. The armed guards flanking the steps would not attack, she assured her captain, hoping that she had not overestimated Luca’s welcome.

So many Rhimese peopled the foyer of the research library that she paused for a moment, yet when Chidney explained to a smiling attendant that Councillor Prior wished to visit, the man scuttled off at once and disappeared into the bowels of the building, reemerging with the head librarian, Signore Marchettina, whose grip could make a wrestler wince.

Reading rooms with desks on which glasses of wine nestled beside books; halls dotted with people arguing over plans and bustling through with quills; laboratories where women juggled vials, bottles, and long-handled spoons . . . the Academy offered chambers upon chambers. An attendant in black livery emblazoned with the red cobra admitted them to the library, where waves of books stretched back to the walls. The section in the far-right corner, cordoned and guarded, drew Lysande’s eye. She caught a glimpse of a triangle embossed on one spine and slipped away toward the cordon rope. The guard barred the rope as she approached, and she was taken by the elbow while Signore Marchettina steered her firmly on.

The shelf of material on the White Queen turned up little of use. She had looked for something that might hint at a weakness, yet she found only jubilee verses condemning the “demon” who had ravaged the realm, and a copy of the law banning portraits of Mea Tacitus, cobbled onto the end of Queen Illora’s Precept by Sarelin. She

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.