Eternity Road Read Online Free

service, that Karik Endine had been blessed with a loving family and a large body of devoted friends. Neither was true. There were no kin other than his son and a couple of neglected cousins. And it would have been difficult to find anyone in Illyria, or for that matter in any of the five League cities and their various suburbs and outposts, who would have thought himself part of Karik’s inner circle.
    Among those who had known him in better times, he had become an object of curiosity and pity, whose death was seen as a release. But they came out of loyalty, as people will, to the old days. Some felt an obligation to attend because they were connected in some way with Flojian. Others were curious, interested in hearing what might be said about a celebrated man whose achievements had, at the very least, been mixed. These were the people who arrived to celebrate his life, to wish him farewell on his final journey, to exchange anecdotes with one another, and to drink somber toasts to the man they realized, at last, they had never really known. As was the tradition on such occasions, no one gave voice to personal reservations about the character of the deceased. (This happy custom arose not only from courtesy to relatives, but from the Illyrian belief that the dead man lingered among them until the priest officially consigned him to eternity.)
     
    “ Thank you .”
    “You’re welcome,” he said .
    “ What’s wrong? ”
    “ Nothing.” Arin wiped his hands and pretended to study the painting. “Nothing’s wrong. But I do have something to tell you.” He’d been standing a long time, more than an hour. Now he sat down on the grassy slope and patted the grass, inviting her to join him. “Do you remember Karik Endine? ”
    “Yes, of course I remember him.” He had been an intense little man who seemed always out of breath, who visited the house and locked himself away with her father and her brother. When she was a little girl, he had patted her on the head, but even then she could see he was distracted and anxious to be away .
    “ He thinks he knows where Haven is. He wants me to go with him to find it .”
    She knew about Haven, knew that it was a story and not a place. “You’re kidding.”
    “ I never kid, Chaka .”
    “ I thought it was made-up .”
    “ Maybe it is. Karik doesn’t think so .”
    “ So where is it? ”
    “ In the north somewhere. He doesn’t really want to say where. But he says he knows how to get there .”
    He was so handsome that morning. “How long will you be gone?”
    “ About six months .”
    “ It seems like a lot of trouble to me. What’s the point? ”
    “ It’s a piece of history, Chaka. Think what might be there .”
    “ The treasures .”
    “ Yes. Maybe there really was an October Patrol, and maybe they really did save part of the Roadmaker world.” He bent toward her. “Abraham Polk probably is made-up, and maybe the whole story’s a fabrication. But there might be some truth to it. We won’t know unless we go look .”
    She asked whether she could go, too. He’d smiled that gorgeous smile and ruffled her hair .
     
    “He never really lived in our time.” The speaker was round-faced, bearded, ponderous. “One might almost say he really lived with the Roadmakers. In this house, he was only a transient.”
    Even Chaka knew that Karik had in fact taken to the house and remained unseen in it for nine years. The remark struck her as unfortunate, and she had to work to restrain a smile.
    Others expressed similar sentiments, and it became clear to Chaka after a time that no one seemed to have had a recent personal experience to relate. Karik Endine had been a man at a distance, someone glimpsed at the periphery of vision. It seemed that nobody had ever gone to lunch with him. Or shared an intimate hour. Nobody said, he was my friend . Nobody said, I loved him .
    Something else was missing in the tributes. There was no mention of the mission to Haven. It was as if