The Navigator of Rhada Read Online Free Page A

find it.
    He called out to the assassin’s horses to come to him, but the beasts had wandered away up the path now that the fighting was done.
    Kynan tried next to drag himself into the lee of the cliffs, for he had begun to shiver uncontrollably with cold and shock. In his confusion he crept in the wrong direction. He had reached the edge of the drop to the sea and was almost over the edge when he fainted.
     
     

4
     
    Fear the Vulk, for he sees without eyes and knows the black arts and dreams of the blood of children. He is not as men. He is without loyalty.
    Preface to The Vulk Protocols, authorship unknown,
Interregnal period
     
    --and it is my wish that my descendants honor this Patent while the House of Rhad rules in Rhada. The Vulk known to men as Gret has been my honored friend and my father’s friend. My trust in him is complete and without condition. For howsoever long the Vulk Gret wishes to serve the House of Rhad, let him be known as Royal Vulk to this family. Given this thirtieth day of the seventh month of the year 6,001 Galactic Era: this sixtieth year of my reign as Kier, second star king of Rhada.
    Excerpt from a Patent of Nobility, The Rhadan Archives,
early Second Stellar Empire period
     
    The alien creature with the ancient title faced the councilors of the Gonlani-Rhad in the hall of Melissande. Like all of his kind, Gret was small in stature--not more than a meter and a half high--and delicately made. His overlarge head, quite hairless and pallid, gleamed in the torchlights. The angry warmen who faced him stood silent, watching the smoothly featureless face, the sensitive mouth, and the motionless, tapering hands resting on the carved bow of the lyre he carried.
    The men of Gonlan: Crespus, the General; Kreon’s warlock, Baltus; Tirzah, the Constable; and LaRoss, the First Minister, were hearing counsel from the Vulk--counsel they did not want to heed.
    “There was no need for the star king to send you, Master Gret,” General Crespus said, after a long silence. “This is a local matter. We can handle it ourselves.”
    Gret gave a very human sigh. For years beyond counting, he had lived among men. He had served the first star king of Rhada, and the star king Kier of blessed memory. He had counseled Kier’s son and grandson and now his great-grandson, Alberic, who was growing old. In Gret’s nonhuman mind lay the memories of millennia and a profound understanding of the savage and wondrous creatures called men.
    Gret’s fingers struck a vibrant note from the lyre. “The making of war on an allied nation-state is scarcely a local matter, General. The noble Rhad asks that you consider very carefully. The friendship between the Rhad and the Aurori is long standing, sanctioned by the Order and the Empire.” Privately, Gret wondered about the Empire in this connection. But this was hardly the place to voice his doubts. Long ago, in Kier’s time, the ties between the Empire and the Rhadan Palatinate were close. Gret remembered Ariane, sister of the first Torquas, who had married into the royal family of Rhada. The troubadours had sung of her:
    Men called her Princess,
Men called her Queen,
Wore she armor of purest gold
And loved she well her Rim-world king,
She whom the warmen called -- Ariane!
    But these were old memories of other times. The world was now, as one found it. With the threat of civil war on the Rim--
    “You have already brought war very near,” Gret said, “by stealing the heiress Janessa from Star Field. Alberic offers to mediate.”
    “Alberic is growing old,” growled Tirzah. “Perhaps he forgets what it means to be a Rhad warman, but we have not, Master Gret.”
    Baltus, the warlock, said, more mildly, “Our king is dying, Gret. Poisoned on Aurora where he went in friendship. Our heir is captured. You know young Karston. He is not called the Proud for nothing. By now he may have been killed. I can’t imagine anyone holding him alive for very long. So then, are we