The Copper Promise
Language: English
Pages: 448
ISBN: 0857665766
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel - about magic and mages and monsters and gods. Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she's spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there's no money to be made in chasing rumours.
But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man's name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel's darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure ...if they're lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it's over.
These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.
tongue. With the mask removed he seemed to unfold somehow, his cloak falling away to reveal a pair of enormous black wings. He unfolded further, becoming taller, while his spindly grey arms flexed and stretched. The thing that was Jolnir rolled its head on its shoulders and snapped its beak, apparently relieved to be free of its confinement. He was a good eight feet tall now, and although it was difficult to see his body through the remnants of rags and swathes of feathers, Frith thought he was
angrily, cutting him off. ‘What happened in Relios, Sebastian? Why were you the only one to survive?’ Sebastian’s eyes were very wide; he looked lost, and it frightened her. A moment ago she’d been ready to land one on his jaw but now she reached out and touched his arm. ‘You can tell me, Seb,’ she said. ‘You’re my sworn brother, aren’t you? You can tell me anything.’ For the briefest second she could see the shadow of the old Sebastian on his weathered face – kindness, weary patience,
all set into the walls, and where there weren’t bones there were uneven shelves filled with jars and bottles of all sizes. A fire burned in a fireplace in the corner of the room, and that was where she discovered the main source of the smell; a corpse was curled there behind the grate, its head and shoulders now a blackened mess in the centre of the fire. It was naked, and she could see that it had once been an elderly woman with sallow skin and a deep scar down one arm. Wydrin swallowed hard.
listen.’ ‘Nonsense,’ she replied, cheerfully. Sebastian was always talking about some old history or another, how was she to know which ones were worth listening to? ‘You’ve never mentioned such a road. I swear it on my claws.’ She patted the sheathed daggers at her waist. ‘Here, then, stop and listen.’ They paused. The city of Krete pressed in on either side of the Sea-Glass Road, like ports against a river, and here and there someone had tried to set up a business on the rippled surface, but
raw power, sending it down certain routes. It is a fine thing to see.’ ‘And I do not need to say the word?’ ‘You have any gods around here you need to speak to? In time, you will learn to see the words in your head, and to write them, and that will direct the Edenier.’ Frith looked at the mystic. In the eerie light of the orb the bird headdress was a thing of deep shadows and alarming angles. There was nothing human about it at all. ‘You knew. How did you know?’ Jolnir shrugged. ‘I am the