Water Sleeps Read Online Free Page A

Water Sleeps
Book: Water Sleeps Read Online Free
Author: Glen Cook
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy fiction, Fantasy, Epic, Fantastic fiction
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saying something but she did not get what I
     meant.
    “Boy ought to know his old man,” One-Eye rasped. He stared at Goblin, waiting to
     be contradicted by a man who did not know his. That was their custom. Pick a
     fight and never mind trivia like facts or common sense. The debate about whether
     or not they were worth the trouble they caused went back for generations.
    This time Goblin abstained. He would make his rebuttal when Sahra was not around
     to embarrass him with an appeal to reason.
    Sahra nodded to One-Eye. “But first we have to see if your scheme really works.”
    One-Eye began to puff up. Somebody dared suggest that his sorcery needed
     field-testing? Come on! Forget the record! This time—
    I told him, “Don’t start.”
    Time had caught up with One-Eye. His memory was no longer reliable. And lately
     he tended to nod off in the middle of things. Or to forget what had gotten him
     exercised when he roared off on a rant. Sometimes he ended up contradicting
     himself.
    He was a shadow of the dried-up old relic he was when first I met him, though he
     got around under his own power still. But halfway through any journey, he was
     likely to forget where he was bound. Occasionally that was good, him being
     One-Eye, but mostly it was a pain. Tobo usually got the job of keeping him
     headed in the right direction when it mattered. One-Eye doted on the kid, too.
    The little wizard’s increasing fragility did make it easier to keep him inside,
    away from the temptations of the city. One moment of indiscretion could kill us
     all. And One-Eye never quite caught on to what it meant to be discreet.
    Goblin chuckled as One-Eye subsided. I suggested, “Could you two concentrate on
     what you’re supposed to be doing?” I was haunted by the dread that one day
     One-Eye would doze off in the midst of a deadly spell and leave us all up to our
     ears in demons or bloodsucking insects distraught about having been plucked from
     some swamp a thousand miles away. “This is important.”
    “It’s always important,” Goblin grumbled. “Even when it’s just ‘Goblin, give me
     a hand here, I’m too lazy to polish the silver myself,’ they make it sound like
     the world’s about to end. Always important? Hmmph!”
    “I see you’re in a good mood tonight.”
    “Gralk!”
    One-Eye heaved himself out of his chair. Leaning on his cane, muttering
     unflattering remarks about me, he shuffled over to Sahra. He had forgotten I was
     female. He was less unpleasant when he remembered, though I expect no special
     treatment because of that unhappy chance of birth. One-Eye became dangerous in a
     whole new way the day he adopted that cane. He used it to swat people. Or to
     trip them. He was always falling asleep between here and there but you never
     knew for sure if his nap was the real thing. That cane might dart out to tangle
     your legs if he was pretending.
    The dread we all shared was that One-Eye would not last much longer. Without
     him, our chances to continue avoiding detection would plummet. Goblin would try
     hard but he was just one small-time wizard. Our situation offered work for more
     than two in their prime.
    “Start, woman,” One-Eye rasped. “Goblin, you worthless sack of beetle snot,
    would you get that stuff over here? I don’t want to hang around here all night.”
    Sahra had had a table set up for them. She used no props herself. At a fixed
     time she would concentrate on Murgen. She usually made contact quickly. At her
     time of the month, when her sensitivity went down, she would sing in Nyueng Bao.
    Unlike some of my Company brothers, I have a poor ear for languages. Nyueng Bao
     mostly eludes me. Her songs seem to be lullabies. Unless the words have double
     meanings. Which is entirely possible. Uncle Doj talks in riddles all the time
     but insists he makes perfect sense if we would just listen.
    Uncle Doj is not around much. Thank God. He has his own agenda—though even he
     does not
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