The Key to Creation Read Online Free Page B

The Key to Creation
Book: The Key to Creation Read Online Free
Author: Kevin J. Anderson
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let me go.”
    Saan smiled at her. “I don’t intend to let her have you back.”
    The young woman had delicate features so perfect that sculptors in Olabar would have lined up for the chance to reproduce her face in marble. Her hair was the color of ivory with a hint of honey, her green eyes shone with an innocent hunger to see and learn. Now Ystya looked pale and dizzy, but when she took Saan’s arm she straightened like a wilting blossom given water. “I just wanted to see the world for myself.”
    “And that’s what I promised you. I don’t go back on my promises.” He tried to look brave and confident, not only for her, but for his entire crew. The sailors looked to their captain for answers, sure he must have some kind of plan to save them. He would have to figure something out.
    Iyomelka summoned ripples of sorcery and flung them at the ship. The Al-Orizin fled before the wind—away from the island witch’s wrath and headlong toward another formidable obstacle: ahead, growing ever closer, towered the scaly body of Bouras, a sea serpent so huge that it was said to girdle the entire world, condemned to bite its own tail until Ondun’s curse was lifted. The Al-Orizin had no way to get past it.
    “I would feel better if I knew how we’re going to get out of this, Captain,” Yal Dolicar said. “Just a hint, perhaps?”
    Ystya turned to stare at the racing, endless body of the Father of All Serpents, which blocked the sea from horizon to horizon. “My mother is no match for Bouras.” The increasing howl of the winds snatched at the girl’s quiet voice. “But she will not stop.”
    “Neither will we.” Saan tried not to show how his mind was racing. “Don’t you worry.”
    Dolicar, a man thoroughly familiar with half-truths and exaggerations, saw through the captain’s cocky façade and turned pale.
    Through the spyglass, Saan looked aft to study Iyomelka’s jagged gray ship. Long ago, that old vessel had sunk in the reefs around her island, but the woman had used her sorcerous powers to raise it from the depths. Strands of seaweed held the tattered sails together, and the hull was encrusted with barnacles and starfish. A sharp, twisted extension of antler coral protruded from the prow. Iyomelka stood on deck beside a crystal coffin that held the preserved body of her husband. The witch’s hair and garments whipped in the gale that she herself had summoned.
    In front of them, the barrier of the gigantic sea serpent’s body looked insurmountable, but at least the Father of All Serpents had no quarrel with them, as far as Saan knew.
    Neither choice seemed particularly pleasant.
    One of the Al-Orizin ’s silken sails came loose and flapped wildly. The painted Eye of Urec folded, then stretched tight again, as if winking. The reef diver Grigovar grabbed the rope, using all his weight to pull it taut, then wrapped it around a stanchion until riggers could connect it properly.
    From the bow of her ship, Iyomelka hurled black thunderclouds toward the Al-Orizin like missiles from an unseen catapult. Next, she summoned two waterspouts, whirling columns of water and air that marched across the waves.
    The Saedran Sen Sherufa, her brown-and-gray hair whipping loose around her, shouted into the noise of the gale, “Captain, how will we get past the sea serpent?”
    “I’m working on that.”
    They sailed ever closer to the enormous reptilian body of Bouras. The titanic thing reeled past with such speed that the armor scales—each the size of a mainsail—were a blur. The spray and ripple of Bouras’s passage tossed the Al-Orizin about like one of the toy boats Saan’s little brother played with. In minutes, their ship would ram into the reptile. “Turn south! Hard starboard!”
    Grigovar used his considerable strength to turn the rudder hard over. The riggers set the sails to catch the wind, and the Al-Orizin heeled about until it cruised alongside the serpent, riding the swift currents drawn along in

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