Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) Read Online Free Page A

Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable)
Book: Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) Read Online Free
Author: Peter David
Tags: Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages:
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Then he heard the sounds of heavy footfalls coming slowly, methodically down the stairs, thump, thump, one at a time. The pattern was enough for him to figure out that it was two men who were carrying some sort of burden.
    Then he saw two men dressed in black emerging into the daylight, carrying a stretcher between them, and there was a body on it covered with a shroud that reached up and over the head. But James didn’t have to see the body beneath it to know whose it was.
    â€œPoor Thomas,” he muttered. It wasn’t as if he was unsympathetic to the woman whose corpse was beneath the shroud, but at least her lengthy suffering was over. Thomas, though, had been left behind, with a father who was hardly the most nurturing of men. On the other hand, at least Thomas had come of age and was in command of his own future even though that future seemed to be already set as part of his father’s business.
    As the men walked past with their burden, he said, “No hearse?”
    One of the men shrugged, and said, “Busy elsewhere, and he wanted her gone as soon as possible.”
    â€œWhen’s the funeral?”
    â€œAin’t gonna be one,” said the other man with a look of obvious disgust. “Said he didn’t see the point in it. That they’d all had plenty of time to mourn her while she was dying, and no point in everyone sitting around and being . . . what’d he say?”
    â€œLachrymose,” the first man said.
    â€œRight. Lachrymose. We take her back to the charnel house, we burn her, and we’ll be bringing back the ashes directly. No fuss. No muss.”
    â€œAnd no big cost.”
    Slowly, they both shook their heads, making no effort to hide their disdain for such a mind-set, and then continued on their way. James Skelton watched them go, scarcely knowing what to think of such a thing. Then he turned and headed into the house. Normally, he would have gone straight up to Thomas’s room, but under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure what his destination should be. But then the question was quickly settled when he heard an abrupt, frustrated, and very loud, “Damnation, Thomas, not this again!” It was coming from upstairs, and James didn’t hesitate to sprint up the stairs to what was, as it turned out, the study of Thomas’s father.
    The man was in a fine lather, and he didn’t even notice when James appeared at the door looking concerned. He was circling Thomas, who was seated in a chair in the middle of the room. It seemed like some manner of grand inquisition. “Could you possibly have picked,” he was raging, “a worse possible time to—”
    â€œ I didn’t pick it!” Thomas said plaintively. “ Mother brought it up! When she was talking about how Stephen died! Well, actually how I died, but . . .”
    â€œYou died?” James spoke up, confused.
    Thomas turned and saw that James was standing there, his face aghast. He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed at having a witness to this confrontation. The Kirkman family had no secrets from James by this point in any of their lives. Still, he obviously felt the need to clarify the statement he’d just made. “Mother, while she lay dying, got everything jumbled in her head. She thought Stephen was the one who survived the balverine attack years ago instead of me . . .”
    â€œThere you go again! There are no such bloody things as balverines!” his father shouted. “Certainly not now, if there ever were! They’re from another time, another age—”
    â€œA better one,” Thomas shot back. “An age of magic and wonder and heroism.”
    â€œOh, balls, boy!” said his father with growing impatience. “When the hell are you going to live in the world we have rather than your world of books?”
    â€œI need those books to keep me sane around here!” And now he was on his feet, bellowing in fury.
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