Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within Read Online Free

she was a woman to be feared.
    Avis, the chief steward of the household,
waited outside the sanctum when she arrived. It was not the first
time he had anticipated her with almost clairvoyant accuracy, and
it was not the first time she wondered if there wasn’t some small
talent hidden within his soul.
    She paused before entering the sanctum,
though she kept her eyes straight ahead looking at the power
within, and not at the servant standing to one side. “You know the
procedure, Avis.”
    “Yes, madam. I’ll seal the chamber and post
guards.”
    She nodded, then stepped forth into the
sanctum, the servant already gone from her mind. This room, and
others like it, always struck her as odd, even after all these
years. Twelve walls and twelve corners. Almost round, but not
quite. The servants would never enter such a room, not even in fear
of their mortal lives, for rightly they feared for their immortal
souls.
    For a moment she stood without moving,
looking at the ceiling and the twelve walls, her eyes narrowing
into a look of intense concentration. Then she chose one of the
twelve corners, though there was nothing to distinguish it from the
rest. She approached it, stood motionless before it, and
concentrated with every ounce of her will on the words of power she
knew existed within her.
    She spoke the words from memory, almost by
rote, for as always they carried no meaning at first, as if they
were not meant to be understood by a mere mortal such as she. But
then slowly the power within them filled her soul with meaning, and
the air about her began to shimmer without luminance, a wavering of
the senses only there at the edge of vision. Then suddenly, as if
her actions were controlled by something beyond her own will, her
hand thrust upward high in the air. Her sleeve billowed about a
leathery old wrist quivering with tension, and she cried out in a
voice that echoed the power at her command: “ Primus ,” she
called, “I bid you come.”
    Pain shot through her arm as a spark of
brilliant radiance flared within her upraised hand, and light that
was not meant for mortal eyes splashed across the room. She wanted
to look away; she wanted to wince at the pain that burned a hole
into her soul, but she knew she dare not show such weakness to the
life she had called forth from the nether reaches.
    She stood for a long, motionless moment. And
then, when certain she had achieved control, she lowered her hand
slowly to the floor, left behind a pillar of such intensity that
now she must look away. To the eyes it was a rod of golden light no
wider than a finger, but to her soul it was something far more. It
was power, the First Dominant Ward of Power, vibrating with a sound
that hurt her ears, blistering her hand with heat, and torturing
her soul with a life beyond what she could ever hope to
comprehend.
    She turned away from it almost arrogantly,
walked to the next corner, raised her hand again and cried,
“ Secundus . I bid you come,” and there she drew forth another
Ward. But where the first had been gold, the second was violet, and
it sang a note higher and more shrill. “ Tertius ,” she cried
at the third corner, and brought forth the white Ward. Quartus answered her summons at the fourth corner, and Quintus at the fifth. When Sextus finally occupied
the sixth corner she paused, sweat beading on her brow, lines of
strain added to those of age.
    She passed the next two corners without
filling them, for between them stood the only entrance to the room,
a heavy stone door hanging on massive iron hinges. At the ninth
corner she called upon Nonus , and at the tenth Decimus , then Undecimus , and Duodecimus . She
completed the circuit of the room, and turned to look upon her
work: ten Wards in ten corners, each flaring its own color, and
sounding a note harsh and demanding.
    AnnaRail entered the room cautiously,
carrying Rat. She was followed by a woman her own age, and an
adolescent boy. She placed Rat, still unconscious,