The Sea of Time Read Online Free Page B

The Sea of Time
Book: The Sea of Time Read Online Free
Author: P C Hodgell
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Paranormal, Epic
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she wanted a finished black lining, but she had only smiled. It was a poor substitute for the knife-fighter’s d’hen , still stowed in her luggage, but at least it was the right color. Unwrapping the tight cheche came as a relief to her burnt, flaking forehead. She considered winding the cloth around her waist, but guessed from Gaudaric’s white sash that to do so would mean something unintended, so instead she rolled it up and stuffed it into her jacket. From an inside pocket came a black cap. The gloves she already wore.
    A sense of relief and release swept over her, as if at the shedding of too tight a garment. As much as she enjoyed being a randon cadet, this freedom was an older love.
    “Welcome back, Talisman,” she breathed.
    No one had yet come up or down the tower, but someone was bound to soon. Were those voices ascending? Time to be gone.
    She had stopped near one of the suspension bridges leading to the nearest palace complex above the clouds. She stepped off onto it over the fleecy backs of clouds. At its lowest point, wisps curled over the steps and it swung gently underfoot. A murmur rose from the plaza far below as if from a distant sea lapping around the Rose Tower’s base.
    The structure she approached now was another tower topped with an oversized cupola. The sun glowed off sheets of riveted copper and flashed from large, round windows like portholes, ringed with gold. A second smaller glass cupola sat on top like a blister, no doubt giving light to the chamber below. Smoke trickled up the brazen shoulders along with the sound of hammers. Inside, someone was bellowing.
    “. . . of all the incompetent, block-headed fools . . .”
    Jame stepped off the bridge onto a balcony. One of the round windows fronted it, its glass disc tilted open a crack vertically. She edged inside, emerging behind a high-backed chair which in turn was drawn up to a huge desk covered with paper work. Other tables around the circular room were piled high with scraps of disjointed armor and tools.
    In the center of the room, a ruddy, bearded man in burnished half-armor over a white tunic was roaring at a cringing apprentice. His voice made all the surrounding metal ring. Some of it clanged to the floor and tried to crawl away.
    “You sodding idiot, couldn’t you see that you had the thing on backward?”
    Between the two was a large dog in fully articulated plate armor, trying wretchedly to scratch itself. Not only was steel in the way, but also its front and rear legs appeared to have been transposed.
    Jame’s eyebrows raised. Itchy skin be damned. How could it even survive, configured like that?
    The ruddy man grabbed the ’prentice and shook him until his cap tumbled over his eyes and his teeth chattered.
    “Out of my sight, you . . . you loose screw!”
    He flung the man away, straight into a hole against the opposite wall. A complicated, diminishing clatter followed—thumps and yelps generally associated with someone falling down a long flight of stairs.
    Lord Artifice, for surely it was he, turned to consider the unfortunate canine.
    “Now, how am I going to sort you out?”
    He picked up a tool, knelt, and started popping rivets at the shoulder and hip seams. The steel torso came free. He lifted it off its framework and reversed it. There didn’t appear to be a dog inside after all, only a dog-shaped hollow.
    He patted its metal back, which rang hollowly. “Better? Now what’s the matter?”
    The creature, whatever it was, had begun to sniff and snarl—a curiously echoing sound within its metal shell. Its head swung toward the chair behind which Jame crouched, and it lunged toward her. Jame broke cover.
    Ruso straightened with a roar, his red beard again abristle, emitting random sparks. “Who are you, skulking there? An assassin? Ha! Don’t you know that you can’t kill a guild lord?”
    Jame kicked the oncoming creature, catching it in the snout and jarring its head askew. It came at her again, slantwise,

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