Bringer of Light Read Online Free

away the after-images of bright text and walked quickly back across the room to the other bed, narrowly avoiding kicking the chamber-pot sticking out from under it.
    ‘Damaru,’ she said urgently, ‘wake up please!’
    When her son made no response she shook him gently.
    He batted at her hand, then opened one eye.
    ‘Damaru, you have to get up. Something is happening to the console.’
    He gave an irritated grunt, but began to wriggle free of the covers.
    Kerin knew he would do as she asked; however awkward her skytouched child might be when faced with day-to-day tasks, he would never turn down the chance to play with this wonderful new technology.
    She went over to the clothes-stand and pulled on the ornate black and silver robe hanging there. She began to work her feet into the specially made shoes with their built-up soles before deciding she did not have the time for that; at this time of the night the guard would be at least as sleepy as she was; he was unlikely to notice such fine details as her height. She fastened the robe, then carefully lifted down the crown-like headdress, wincing as she took the weight of its precious metal and cunningly hidden technology on her injured arm. She settled the headdress on her head and, suitable attired, left the room, pulling the veil across her face as she hurried down the short passage to the cavernous audience chamber. The light-globes studding the lower walls of the great domed hall were at half-brightness; she had similar artefacts in her own room, though she rarely used them – Damaru slept better in natural light, and was less likely to disassemble oil-lamps when he was bored.
    In the dim light Kerin could just make out the half-asleep monitor on the far side of the room, leaning against the wall by the bronze doors. She smiled in sympathy as she saw the way his head drooped on his chest, then put her natural self to one side.
    ‘You!’ she called out imperiously. ‘Fetch Escori Urien, now !’
    He actually jumped, and Kerin felt amused contrition. ‘A— At once, Divinity,’ he stammered. He traced the circle over his breast and bowed low before turning to tug open one of the doors.
    As soon as the monitor left, Kerin strode up to the throne and reached round to press a button under the armrest. In the blink of an eye, a narrow metal bridge sprang into place across the chasm that divided the rock-hewn chamber in two, separating the mundane far side from the ‘divine’ space she inhabited.
    When she returned to her room Damaru was not sitting in the cunningly designed turning seat in front of the console, but was kneeling beside it. He had pulled off part of the casing and had one hand deep in the console’s innards. There was no point in telling him to stop; he had an instinctive, almost mystical, ability to understand and control complex devices, a talent Sais had called ‘machine empathy’. He knew what he was doing far better than she.
    She breathed, ‘Is it a message?’, still hoping that it was Sais, here to lend his advice and share his knowledge. The power Kerin had had thrust upon her already weighed heavily.
    She was not surprised when Damaru did not answer her. He had more important concerns than listening to his mother. The screen display had changed now: there was still a line of flashing text in the top half, but below that she saw an ever-shifting mass of words and numbers. She looked back at the original message and tried to work out what it said. Urien said she was a quick student, but her duties left her little time to study; in the scant weeks that he had been teaching her to read she had managed to do little more than memorise the letters and recognise her own name. The first letter of this message was an ‘R’; the second ‘E’; then ‘J’. After that . . . it would be easier if she could get closer and trace the words with a finger, but that risked disturbing Damaru.
    He was leaning over the missing panel, his head almost inside the