Thief (The Key to Magic Book 7) by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

Author:H. Jonas Rhynedahll [Rhynedahll, H. Jonas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rhynedahll Software
Published: 2015-09-11T23:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

143rd Year of the Reign of the City

Twelfthday, Waning, 3rd Springmoon, 1645 After the Founding of the Empire

The Monolith

Rhavaelei walked through the half rebuilt gallery that served the Queen Empress' villa as a front gate, waved gaily to the four legionnaires standing guard in a side alcove -- they did not wave back, but one of them smiled -- then traipsed down the wide stair that led down to the lane. She was almost dancing.

She would have a son!

She was amazed at how strongly the news -- the prophecy -- had affected her. She had never --

Some force that was like wind but that was not air slammed into and swept over her and then there was an instant of searing sound, painful light, and crushing pain. Gasping, she staggered and fell, scraping her palms on grainy sand and jumbled stone slabs as she caught herself. Disoriented and hurting, she threw her head up to try to find out what in all the stupid names of the Forty-Nine Gods had just happened.

The view was a stunning shock. She was somewhere else!

Leaping to her feet, she stared at the irregular walls, tilted columns, crumbling towers, and collapsed galleries that now surrounded her. She was on a half-buried street or square of some sort and was still on the Monolith -- the textures, shades, and styles of the stonework around her were unmistakable -- but this had to be one of the empty areas not yet claimed by Viceroy Khlosb'ihs' settlement.

Her heart grew cold. It must have been some horrid magic that had tossed her here!

"You failed to complete our bargain," Zso scolded from behind her.

She instantly twirled around, trying to gather her composure in spite of her growing panic. "I discovered that I already have all that my heart desires."

This remark, blurted in a cavalier, off hand fashion, was, she realized with a heart-skipping jolt, true.

Zso shook his head in reproach. "A pity. You are such a handsome woman that it is indeed a crime to waste your delightful flesh, but I cannot tolerate divergence from my plans. Too much is as stake. And, unfortunately for you, your absence at this point will prove useful."

With a look of regret, he raised a hand glowing with violet light, fingers clawed as if gripping something unseen.

She threw herself back with a screech.

Then Zso's head exploded in a spray of blood and brain matter. After a near comical second of stability, his lifeless corpse toppled over and smacked into the ground.

Stunned, she lay on the weed sprouted patch of sand where she had landed for a cringing moment, then twisted her head about as she heard a horse's hooves clop near.

A wizened, parchment-fleshed old man rode upon the horse. She had never seen his face before, but she had seen ones like it hundreds of times. The fellow was as plebian as any tradesmen that Rhavaelei had ever passed upon a busy street.

His mount, an absolutely beautiful sorrel, was by far the more interesting of the pair.

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