Eternity Road Read Online Free Page A

it had never happened.
    Flojian tried to look mournful, but after a while he gave it up and simply walked around wearing a blank expression that probably masked his relief that the old man was gone. He’d shunned an academic life like Karik’s for one that seemed more useful, and certainly was more lucrative: He operated a pair of ferries and a service that used horses to drag flatboats back upstream. The villa had been in the family for four generations, but it had fallen into neglect and disrepair during Karik’s tenure. It had been Flojian’s money that had restored it, and subsequently furnished and maintained it. His father had been a dreamer. Flojian saw nothing wrong with that, but it required men of purpose and action like himself to create a world in which dreamers could live.
    Chaka had gone to see Karik shortly after her father’s death. She’d never understood precisely what had happened to Arin. So she went to his cottage and knocked on the door, determined to ask him. He’d let her wait a long time, and it had become a war of nerves until Karik gave in and opened up.
     
    “ I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sleeping .”
    His tone suggested he was lying. She was still very young but her blood was up by then. “My father told me Arin drowned, Master Endine. But I wonder whether you could explain just what happened? ”
    He stood in the doorway, ferocious in moonlight. “Come in, Chaka .”
    “ I’m sorry to bother you .”
    “ It’s no bother .”
    “ I know my father talked to you.” But he had come home and stared into the fire and said simply that Arin had drowned, had got swept away by the current and drowned. And that was all .
    Karik offered her a seat. “We were trying to ford a river. We thought we were getting close to the end of the journey, and maybe we got careless. Arin was leading the way, with our guide. Landon Shay. One of the packhorses lost its balance. It panicked and Arin went after it and tried to pull it back.” His gaze focused on a distant point. “In the end they both got dragged away. When he saw it was hopeless to try to save the animal, Arin let go and swam for shore. We thought he’d make it, but every time he got close, the current pushed him out again. Finally he got sucked into white water, into rocks.” He leaned close. “I think he hit his head. The last we saw of him, he looked unconscious. Then the river took him around a bend. It all happened so fast. We just couldn’t reach him, Chaka .”
    “ But you never found his body? ”
    He reached out for her. “We searched for him downstream. But no. We never found him. I’m sorry. I wish I could have done something .”
    He had begun to cry. Only a short storm, but fierce all the same because he did not look like a man capable of tears. And when he’d recovered, he’d gone upstairs and come down with an armload of sketches, her brother’s work. “These are from the mission,” he said, offering them to her and then asking if he might keep one .
     
    “Does anyone else wish to speak?” Flojian looked over the assembly. It was a lovely day, bright and cool and clear. The river was ablaze in the sun. The priest, an elderly woman with white hair and severe features, inserted a couple of sticks into the cookfire and glanced at the torch.
    Chaka had wondered about the description of Arin’s death. He hadn’t been much of a swimmer, and she had a difficult time imagining him daring deep water to bring back a panicked animal. It could have happened. But it was out of character. She had concluded that Karik might have added the heroic details to comfort her. It was more likely that Arin had simply been carried away himself and sank like a stone.
    She surprised herself by standing up. “I would like to say something.” The assembly parted and she walked forward and ascended the platform. She had red, shoulder-length hair, features that had been boyish during adolescence and which retained a rugged,