Storm Rising Read Online Free Page A

from home, and cut off from all supplies. Under circumstances like this one, his men
might
be understanding … or they might not. It was best to be sure of them for now.
    He sanded the inked orders and took them to the door of his quarters, where one of his bodyguards took them away to the corps of secretaries to be copied and distributed.
    “I do not want to be disturbed under any circumstances,” he told the guard, who nodded and saluted,and when he went back into his room and closed the door, he also locked it. The guard would think nothing amiss in this. Locking his door was nothing new; he often required privacy to think and plan. There was no one of higher rank here to question that “need” for absolute privacy.
    This time, however, he needed privacy to act, not to think. And it was just as well that he had made a habit of privacy. No one would know what he did here, tonight.
    Thanks to the Little God of Lust that my aunt was his devotee.
If it had not been for his aunt, and her own need for secrecy…. He sat down at his traveling desk and reached beneath it, straining a little to touch the spot behind the drawer that held his pens, ink, and drying sand. The place he needed to reach lay just past the right-hand corner of that drawer….
    He felt the tiny square of wood sink as he depressed it, and he quickly removed the pen drawer, taking it out of the desk and placing it on top, out of the way. His aunt had been a woman who was very protective of her secrets—and absolutely ruthless in that protection. If he had removed the drawer first, pressing the key-spot on the bottom of the desk would have resulted in a poisoned needle through the fingertip. Within an hour, he would have been dead. The poison on that needle was known to persist in potency for two hundred years, and as for the mechanism, he was certain it would outlive him. He reached into the cavity that had held the drawer and felt for a similar spot in the back of the cavity and on the right-hand side.
    Another square of wood sank beneath his questing finger, and he moved his hand to the left side of the cavity. In this case, had he not removed his hand immediately but continued to press at the spot, it would have triggered a second mechanism, and the secret drawer he was trying to free would have locked into place. Unless you knew the way to reset it, nothing short of hacking the desk to pieces would allow one to reach that hidden drawer.
    That second drawer, the secret one, half the height ofthe original, had slid a bare fraction out of the back of the cavity. He pried it completely out, touching
only
the top edge, and brought it out of its hiding place into the candlelight. It, too, was trapped; this time with a slow-acting contact poison that was a natural component of the wood forming the bottom. He was
very
careful not to touch the bottom, only the sides. The inside was lined with slate to insulate what it held from the poisonous wood.
    All of this was quite necessary, for within this drawer was an object that meant death without trial if it was ever found in his possession. Or rather, it
had
meant a death sentence. Now, well—unless there was an Imperial spy in his army with the rank and authorization to carry such a sentence out, it was—
    It is less likely. I will never say “unlikely” when it comes to the power of the Emperor.
    More precious than gold, more magical than jewels, more potent than drugs. It was the pure, crystallized essence of power. He took it from its nest of silk with hands that were remarkably steady, given the deadly danger it represented.
    It was a completely accurate copy of the Imperial Seal, identical in every way, mundane and magical, with the original. It had been obtained at incredible risk—although the actual
cost
had been minimal, for he had made the copy himself. He could never have bought this; there was not enough money in the world to pay a mage to make this, and not enough to bribe an Imperial secretary