Well of Sorrows by Joshua Palmatier

Author:Joshua Palmatier [Palmatier, Joshua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2010-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

Colin visited the deck of the Alvritshai ship twice over the course of the next day, but he did not see Aeren or Eraeth. The guardsmen assigned to escort him changed sometime during the night, but they did not speak to him. While he was on deck the following morning, he heard a pair of them whispering about him in their own language. The only word he caught was “shaeveran,” and he frowned, wondering what it meant, recalling that that was what the previous guard had muttered when he exposed the black mark on his forearm.

He kept the mark hidden after that, the sleeve of his shirt fully extended.

He was in his cabin the following afternoon when one of the guardsmen appeared and motioned him to gather his things and come up on deck. The first thing he noticed as he stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight was that the ship’s crew had become more active, rushing from post to post, securing ropes and tying down sails. He saw why almost immediately.

The ship had entered a sea lane. At least ten other ships of varying sizes surrounded them, and land filled the horizon to port. They’d crossed the strait while Colin was below with the help of a stiff western wind, and now the prow of the ship was pointed toward the mouth of an inlet that broke through the rocky coastline. The ocean crashed against crags of rock to either side, sending up sheets of spray taller than the deck of the Alvritshai ship; and as they drew nearer, Colin could feel the currents beneath shuddering through the hull, the deck vibrating beneath his feet.

“Look,” Aeren said, pointing toward the top of the promontory to the north of the inlet, where a large castle stood above the pounding waves, unlike anything Colin had seen back in Andover or in the New World. A single tower of pale stone pierced upward from a building made of the same stone as the cliffs. While the main palace looked like the walls of a fortress, the tower was oddly delicate, a light shining steadily from its peak. “The palace. The lighthouse is called the Needle. It was designed by King Maarten, the current King’s father. Probably the Province’s greatest King so far.”

Then the ship passed into the inlet, rocky crags closing in on both sides, close enough that Colin took an involuntary step backward, sucking in a sharp breath. Before he could swear, the sides of the inlet fell away, and the riptides of the narrow opening smoothed out. The wind died down to gusts, the inlet protected by the surrounding land.

The Alvritshai captain steered the ship into a seething hubbub of ships and boats. They wound through the chaotic order of the ship lanes, skiffs and smaller boats appearing as they neared the docks. Those standing on the decks of the passing ships eyed the Alvritshai with fear and suspicion, and Colin realized that Aeren and the rest of the Alvritshai had tensed, their eyes forward, looking to where the ship would make port.

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.