Warrior (The Key to Magic) by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

Author:H. Jonas Rhynedahll [Rhynedahll, H. Jonas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Rhynedahll Software
Published: 2013-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SEVEN

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

Plaza of the Empire, Khalar

The shuffling crowd surged ahead abruptly. Pyntyr, carrying his daughter Zhue, gestured for his wife Lyhya to hurry.

"If we don't move faster," he told her, "we'll miss the juggling."

"Juggling!" Zhue squealed in excitement. Only four, she found words exciting in and of themselves.

Holding on to their dancing eight year old son Mlymhon with one hand and gripping the basket that had their lunch in the other while trying to keep her feet from being stepped on, Lyhya gave him a sour look. "I think you're more worried about missing those shameless women taking a bath right out in the open."

Pyntyr looked aghast. "Moon Dancers aren't 'shameless women,' dear. They're dedicated servants of the Goddess Miyra. And they are not 'taking a bath,' they're performing holy ablutions."

"Dedicated servants who just happen to be young, slim, and mostly naked. Hmmph."

Today was the last holy day of spring and all the temples had scheduled special ceremonies to welcome the Advent of Summer. The brass foundry where Pyntyr worked had closed for the day and he had decided to take his family to enjoy the festivities in the Plaza of the Empire. They had started early, but unfortunately it seemed that half the Lower City had also decided to do the same thing. The multitudes occupying the Avenue of Rhwalkahn’s Ascension had been so thick that it had taken them a full hour to walk from the Red Ice Bridge to this point, where the monuments and shrines at the head of the Plaza were in sight.

"My admiration of their nubile bodies is no more than an expression of my faith in the --" Pyntyr began. The large woman in front of him stopped abruptly, forcing him to do likewise. A man behind him was not so quick and bumped into him and then muttered a frustrated apology.

Over the constant serrated tremolo of the crowd, Pyntyr heard something that sounded like screams.

"Lyra, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" she demanded, drawing Mlymhon up short when he tried to make a break for it between two older women standing together.

"I guess it was nothing."

Like a wave, a backwards movement shifted through the crowd. Pyntyr barely got out of the way of the large woman when a gang of costume wearing adolescents in front of her shambled to the rear without looking. Shouts and curses began to circulate.

"Pyntyr," Lyra said, sounding worried, "something is wrong."

"Something wrong!" Zhue repeated, wiggling around in his arms to try to see better toward the Plaza.

"Let's try to move over to the side," he told Lyra, putting his free arm around his wife to make sure they did not get separated.

Another shift surged through the crowd and now an uproar coming from the Plaza was quite clear.

"We'd better go back," Lyra told him firmly, putting her basket down so that she could pick up Mlymhon.

"Alright." He turned around and spoke to the man behind. "Pardon me, but we'd like to go back.

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.