All Darkness Met Read Online Free Page A

his wife, grinning. “Remember passage in Wizards of Ilkazar, in list of sins of same? Be great fundament for speech, eh? No?”
    Nepanthe smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think this’s the place. Or the time. They might think you’re serious.”
    “Money here. Look. Self, being talker of first water, spins web of words. In this assemblage famous law of averages declares must exist one case of fool headedness. Probably twenty-three. Hai! More. Why not? Think big. Self, being student primus of way of spider, pounce. Ensnare very gently, unlike spider, and, also unlike same, drain very slow.”
    Elana, too, shook her head. “Hasn’t changed a bit. Not at all. Nepanthe, you’ve got to tell me all about it. What have you been doing? How’s Ethrian? Do you know how much trouble it was to find you? Valther used half his spies. Had them looking everywhere. And there you were in the Siluro quarter all the time. Why didn’t you keep in touch?”
    At that moment the Marshall, Bragi Ragnarson, spied them. He spared Nepanthe an answer.
    “Mocker!” he thundered, startling half the hall into silence. He abandoned the lords he had been attending. “Yah! Lard Bottom!” He threw a haymaker. The fat man ducked and responded with a blur of a kick that swept the big man’s feet from beneath him.
    Absolute silence gripped the hall. Nearly three hundred men, plus servants and women, stared.
    Mocker extended a hand. And shook his head as he helped the Marshall rise. “Self, must confess to one puzzlement. One only, and small. But is persistent as buzzing of mosquito.”
    “What’s that?” Ragnarson, standing six-five, towered over the fat man.
    “This one tiny quandary. Friend Bear, ever clumsy, unable to defend self from one-armed child of three, is ever chosen bygreat ones to defend same from foes of mighty competence. Is poser. Sorcery? Emboggles mind of self.”
    “Could be. But you’ve got to admit I’m lucky.”
    “Truth told.” He said it sourly, and didn’t expand. Luck, Mocker believed, was his nemesis. The spiteful hag had taken a dislike to him the moment of his birth.... But his day was coming. The good fortune was piling up. When it broke loose....
    In truth, luck had less to do with his misfortunes than did compulsive gambling and an ironhard refusal to make his way up any socially acceptable means.
    This crude little brown man, from the worst slum of the Siluro ghetto, had had more fortunes rush through his fingers than most of the lords present. Once he had actually laid hands on the fabled treasure of Ilkazar.
    He wouldn’t invest. He refused. Someday, he knew, the dice would fall his way.
    The fat man’s old friend, with whom, in younger days, he had enjoyed adventures that would’ve frightened their present companions bald, guided him onto the raised platform from which his approach had been spotted. Mocker began shaking. A moment’s clowning, down there, was embarrassing enough. But to be dragged before the multitudes....
    He barely noticed the half dozen men who shared the dais with the Marshall. One eyed him as would a man who spotted someone he thinks he recognizes after decades.
    “Quiet!” Ragnarson called. “A little quiet here!”
    While the amused-to-disgusted chatter died, Mocker consid-ered his friend’s apparel. So rich. Fur-edged cape. Blouse of silk. Hose that must cost more than he scrounged in a month.... He remembered when this man had worn bearskins.
    Once silence gained a hold, Ragnarson announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to introduce somebody. A man I tracked down at considerable inconvenience and expense because he’s the critical element that has been missing from our Victory Day celebrations. He was one of the unspoken heroes who guided us up the road to Baxendala, one of the men whose quiet pain and sacrifice made victory possible.” Ragnarson held Mocker’s hand high. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world’s foremost authority.”
    Puzzled, the