The Name Of The Sword (Book 4) Read Online Free

the process acquired only a nasty splinter in her thumb. Last of all she stood over a small, wooden chest at the base of his bed. If it yielded naught, she’d have nothing to show for her efforts but the splinter and the single coin.
    When she opened the lid she realized she’d uncovered a treasure trove. She found a comb with a few missing teeth, but with several hairs still attached to it. It was an old thing, probably one of the few possessions he’d had as a small child living in the young boy’s barracks. She also found a cheap knife, the broken shard of a mirror, a small bronze pendant, four shiny stones polished by the weather, two dove feathers, and an old pair of cheap boots much too small to have fit Morgin for several years now. All these items appeared to be little treasures from his past, and that made them especially valuable for her purposes.
    She returned to her own single room, laid the items out on a writing table and looked them over carefully. She must eliminate any that weren’t truly his, for they would contaminate the spell she intended to craft.
    She started with the copper coin, picked it up and held it to her breast. She summoned power, fed some of it into the coin and thought of Morgin, tried to recall every memory she had of him . . . and nothing happened.
    She tried to put her disappointment aside as she next picked up the comb and removed one of the hairs. Again, she held the object to her breast, fed it power and thought of a time when Morgin had picked her up as a small child. She had always enjoyed his antics, making faces at her to get a laugh or a shriek. As with all memories from her earliest years it came to her in hazy and indistinct images, and it was difficult to truly recall his face in detail. But the image cleared, and she saw him as if he stood before her this moment, the young face of a boy at about the age of 12. The screwed up grimace and crossed eyes he made for her evoked a laugh even now.
    She quickly determined that most of the items she’d taken from the trunk were his, though his connection to some of them was rather weak. Strongest were the four stones and the strands of hair. He had probably acquired the stones only a short time after first coming to Elhiyne. She decided to work with just the hairs and the stones.
    She used two strands of hair to bind the stones into a ring, four stones, each with a delicate knot tied about it. She then pulled one of her own hairs and added it to Morgin’s to reinforce the knots. She pulled more power, fed it into the charm she had created, then cleared her thoughts. For this spell to work, she must not contaminate the invocation with her own biases.
    She sat for what seemed quite a long time, and slowly a sense of purpose emerged from the charm. She had a brief glimpse of Morgin riding in the Munjarro next to a young Benesh’ere warrior, the two of them crossing the sands together. A moment later they were joined by an older Benesh’ere warrior, then after that a young girl, though she seemed every bit as warlike as the men. Together, the four of them headed toward the glistening, glass-like spires of a city in the far distance. She saw Morgin kissing a beautiful girl that looked much like Rhianne, and yet not. She saw him standing between two armies facing one another across a battlefield; one bore the banners of Elhiyne, and the other that of Penda. She saw him leading strange beasts to war against dogs who stood on their hind legs and walked like men. She saw many images of him, and from them all she sensed purpose , not something that belonged in the past, but rather in the future.
    Exhausted, she extinguished the spell and lay down to rest.
    ••••
    Spinning . . . spinning . . . spinning
    As Rhianne spun, completely helpless under the control of Valso’s spell, she had no sense of the sword. Before, even without the enchantment, the blade had stood out like a beacon in a starless night, and Valso’s spell had