Extraordinary Zoology Read Online Free Page B

eyes blurring from staring at the fire. “Excuse me?”
    “Your name. Would you write your name for me?”
    He was baffled. “Whatever for?” And then he noticed her worn copy of the Monsternomicon , almost completely swallowed up in the grasp of her massive left hand.
    “You helped Professor Pendrake write this book. You drew pictures.” She clutched the tome to her battered breastplate. “Your name is inside already. But not written in your hand.”
    Morrow and marrow , Lynus swore to himself. He closed his eyes as if to squeeze the rest of the hearth fire out of them.
    “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes still closed.
    “I thought it was a splendid idea.”
    Lynus opened his eyes and snapped his head up so quickly it almost hurt. Pendrake stood next to Kinik, a quill perched on his right ear along the stem of his glasses.
    Pendrake continued. “King Leto asked for an inscription once. It’s a practice that honors everyone. And you ought to treat even my most junior students at least as well as I do.” He dropped his chin almost to his chest and looked down at Lynus over the rims of his glasses. “Perhaps even as well as I treated you, when you first entreated me for studies.”
    “Yes sir.” Lynus fumbled around in his satchel for the quill and bottle he’d stowed.
    “Use mine, lad.” He offered Lynus his quill and an open pot. “No point cleaning two of them tonight.”
    Lynus took Kinik’s copy of the Monsternomicon from her and opened to the frontispiece. There was Viktor Pendrake’s signature, and beneath it, Edrea Lloryrr’s. Lynus dipped the quill, gave it a light touch against the side of the pot, and carefully signed his own name. It looked, to his eye, like the first thing he’d done properly all day.

    The next morning they departed the Tradeway just two miles beyond The Bodger’s Bed and Barrel. The signpost marking the side road east toward tiny Bednar and the vast Widower’s Wood was so weathered it looked more like a dead tree than directions. The side road, if it could be called a road at all, was overgrown enough that Lynus wondered if the not-so-distant Widower’s Wood was reaching out to stake a claim. This path looked more like a pair of goat tracks than a proper road.
    “That’s the end of the warm beds,” Horgash announced as they struck east. “No more inns, no more mead, no more hearth fires surrounded by fat merchants and wary mercenaries. It’s all bedrolls and brambles for days if we venture into the Widower’s Wood.”
    “I take expeditions along tracks like these rather regularly, old friend,” said Pendrake.
    “Yes, yes. I was speaking for the benefit of the young ones back there.”
    “We’re among those he takes,” Lynus said. “I, for one, am no stranger to bedrolls and brambles.”
    “Begging your forgiveness,” said Horgash with an exaggerated flourish. “I didn’t realize the young librarian was such a seasoned explorer.”
    “I’m not a librarian .”
    “I think he knows that,” Edrea said, her voice just above a whisper. “He pokes fun at youth, a common enough practice among folk who think they’ve gotten old.”
    “I don’t just think I’m old,” said Horgash. “The mighty outcroppings upon this weathered chin announce my advancing age any time I’m unfortunate enough to see my reflection, and I’ve long since stopped trying to ignore them.”
    “I’m familiar with the ravages of time,” Edrea said. “Take that signpost back there. Why, I recall when one could still see the white paint in the carved letters.”
    “Hah!” said Horgash. “The Cygnarans haven’t whitewashed those letters since the Lion’s Coup.”
    “Oh, has it been that long? It seems like just yesterday.” Edrea winked at Lynus as she said this. Leto had assumed the throne twelve years ago.
    “Well, that’s just . . .” Horgash paused. “Hrmph.” He muttered something Lynus couldn’t make out.