The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) Read Online Free Page A

satisfied most people, but not the wizard. Lucas had failed to exact the punishment, had failed to deliver the promised revenge.
    Now, Lucas was a life slave to Jarman, because that’s what his honor and code of justice dictated. Just as Jarman had been sent as an apprentice to the Anada. It should have been a single year, but it had turned into a decade.
    Eybalen was an evil city. Luckily, Jarman was not going to Eybalen.
    They would land in its port, then make their way out of the capital as soon as they could. The goal of their journey rested to the north and west. The last report placed their goal some three hundred miles away, in the center of the realm.
    The ship was coming toward the harbor now, and the wind direction was turning more erratic, buffeted by the crease of hills to the north of the city. He could see fishing boats struggling to make it out of the cove into the high sea, where they could finally pull their rigging taut and begin trawling.
    So many ships
, Jarman noted. Sails didn’t tell him much, but he knew there would be people from all corners of the world converging here: Sirtai, Parusites, Oth Danesh—those who did not practice piracy and preferred peaceful tradeinstead—Badanese. They came to sell their spices and souls. The High Council never turned down money.
    Jarman did not relish the encounter with foreign civilization. Well, if you could call it civilization. He had read all he could on the continental customs, but reading and experiencing them were two different things. He knew about cutpurses and cripples begging in the tiny alleys, and sick whores trying to sell off their flesh. He didn’t want to meet them. He didn’t want anything to do with this ugly place.
    But it was the first stop on his journey.
    Strange, he thought, how such a barbaric, outright nation when it came to violence and lies could be so timid when it came to celebration of life. These mainland people treated love as a hidden thing, something to be practiced with shame and secrecy. They married single partners only. As a wizard, he was not allowed to wed, but he didn’t see anything wrong about having several wives. Why couldn’t these Caytoreans understand that?
    A first stop.
    Oh, he could smell the city now, brine and urine and stale water mixed together. The harbor was not deep, but he could not see the bottom. The sea stared back at him, murky and deep green, almost blue. The
Sleek Maid
slacked her sails and glided to a bobbing halt maybe five hundred paces from the shore, waiting for the tugboats to guide her in. As a quick cutter, it did not have its own oarsmen.
    The next hour turned into two as Jarman stood and watched helplessly as the locals manhandled the ship, tossing large ropes to the crew, then drawing them taut, and finally rowing slowly toward one of the piers. They looked like fingers of some twisted giant, long, thin, and there were too many of them. Most had some kind of vessel moored, mostly big, fatcargo ships. Mainly those that had valuable cargo to unload. Others were forced to anchor in the shallows and use tiny boats to get to the city’s filthy streets.
    Sirtai were always welcome here, he knew. The Caytoreans appreciated the accuracy and wealth of his countrymen and maybe even feared the mysticism and magic that veiled them, almost as thick as the rumors and stories. But there was no denying the influence of Sirtai on the realms. The small island had brought most of the technology and culture to these land peoples.
    It all went back to the war between the gods.
    It was a war that had not yet ended.
    Jarman lost his footing as the cutter jarred into the pier. Lucas grabbed his upper arm, steadying him. Men cursed, ropes lashed like whips, and then the
Sleek Maid
settled. Jarman looked about. No one seemed flustered. There was no damage, it seemed.
    “We have reached our destination, sir. Safe and dry,” Ship-master Arimo said, grinning.
    Jarman knew what was expected of him; his father