Fire Logic by Laurie J Marks

Author:Laurie J Marks
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780812566536
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2004-02-26T06:00:00+00:00

— MACKAPEE’S Principles for

Community

The past is always with us. For the

blood that soaks the earth cries out

for justice. And without justice we

never will have peace.

— MABIN’S Warfare

Between victory and defeat,

between offense and revenge, lies

a third possibility: neither a

compromise nor an abandonment,

but a marriage.

— MEDRIC’S History of My Father’s People

FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS

Chapter Nineteen

Like a great wheel the year turned; and now the sower dropped to the horizon, and up rose the gatherer with her arm outstretched to capture the ripe stars and put them in her basket. All day, in kitchens across Shaftal, the ripe fruits had been cut up to be dried in the sun, or cooked with sugar to make preserves, or covered with hot syrup to be baked into pies during the dark half of the year.

Now it was night, and in the most northwestern borderland, the general of the Paladins sat awake in her lamplit study with a bowl of golden apricots untouched upon her desk. The aging general of the Sainnites also sat awake, drinking wine and pacing restlessly as he made the messenger from South Hill explain again and again how the South Hill garrison had managed to lose track of the Sainnites’ only seer.

Somewhere between these two generals, in a silent glade well away from the road, Zanja lay staring into the darkness, and did not flinch or even seem to notice when Norina began to peel the bandage from her wounded leg. And on the river which runs east past Wilton, Emil stood at the bow of a boat that lazily rode the current towards Hanishport and the sea. After fifteen years as the commander of South Hill Company, he had left South Hill, and never would return.

How could he continue to command, when his general had proven herself such a fool? Norina Truthken had told him quite forcefully that Mabin had valid reasons for her actions that would never be explained. But whatever Mabin’s reasons, no matter how valid they might be, that did not make it FIRE LOGIC - ELEMENTAL LOGIC BOOK 1 - LAURIE MARKS

any less impossible for Emil to continue as commander. He wrote Mabin a letter, he delivered South Hill Company to Perry’s capable command, he bid his friends farewell, and he left South Hill.

His lifetime of service had left him impoverished by Shaftali standards, for he had no family to go home to, and the friends who had served as family in the old Paladins were dead or fighting in the war. Still, he could not seem to bring himself to be concerned about his own future. He felt only his freedom.

The boat reached Haprin at mid-afternoon. He made his way to a storehouse near the docks, where he showed a woman his letter from Medric and she waved him into the building without even looking at it. “It’s four big trunks, halfway back on the right side,” she said. “You’ll be needing a wagon.”

Once beyond the light of the doorway, he walked through a darkness that rustled with mice and bats.

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