A Thread of Time: Firesetter, Book 1 Read Online Free

Trust me.  It is
about to swing again.”
    “It’s a new century,” I replied.  “We
won’t make the mistakes of your generation.”
    “It was a new century then, too, and we
said the same.”
    “King Mikal has everything under control.”
    “He is a sad man, scarred by the Disease,
and his own woes.  The loss of his beloved wife and his little princess makes
him long for the eternal rest.  I fear our next king shall be his distant
cousin, Duke Marko Korelesk and that does not bode well for our people, those
who came from the motherland of Karupatani.  Weak men always look for another
to blame, and the Duke is both weak and dislikes our kind.”
    “I am not afraid,” I replied smugly,
placing the skirt upon a hanger, and covering it with a sheet of thin plastic
wrap.  “There is a movement afoot to elect a president instead of a king.  We
shall select someone smarter, someone caring who can represent us all.  After
Mikal, we shall be finished with the reign of kings and queens.”
    Grandmother hated it when I argued for
democracy.  Like her ire, the color rose in her face. 
    “People are stupid,” she snapped,
impatiently.  “Too stupid to elect anyone who won’t proclaim himself exactly
that.  Go on with you now, Miss University Girl.  Go study your philosophy, but
take a look at history too.  When you are hungry, recall how to earn a coin by
placing a stitch.  It will feed you more than any art or music theories can
provide.”
    “That will never happen,” I retorted,
already half way out her door.
    “Of course it will.  You just wait and
see, for again it shall be us that are called to blame.  Again, it shall be us
who will become unwelcome in our homes.  For this time, our motherland awaits. 
The Great Emperor granted it to us for all perpetuity.  He knew two hundred
years ago that this time would come to pass again.”
    I must have responded smartly.  I always
did.  At the very least, I would have let the door slam shut behind me, as I
hurried out, making an attempt to salvage the afternoon.  I wouldn’t let
Grandmother's predictions bother me, for I heard the same every Saturday, and
ignored them every time. 
    The motherland, the old ways held no attraction
when the future beckoned.  Frankly, only my grandmother belonged there, where
they still practiced the Old Religion and kept the laws in those silly ancient
books.  To do this day, nearly two centuries since the Great Emperor had ended
the wars and combined the races, only she still insisted we were of one and not
the other.
     
    But, I was the ignorant one, for time
happened exactly as my grandmother foresaw.  After King Mikal’s death a dozen
years into the future, while I was still a young mother, Grandmother’s
prophetic words unfortunately came true. 
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
    Lance
     
    My first year in the Allied SpaceForce
aboard the Starship S/S Tornado was fairly uneventful if you consider spending
six months of it in the sickbay stuck in a bed.  I was waylaid fairly quickly
by an attack of the space sickness which left most of my muscles unable to
move.  The only muscles that responded to any stimuli from my brain were those
in my face, my heart and lungs, and the ones controlling my left pinkie
finger.  Unfortunately, while these muscles generally worked, there were times
when even they simply chose to go to sleep, leaving me as productive as a
zucchini on a stretcher. 
    “It’s because of your previous nerve
injuries,” the ship’s doc decided after studying the monitor above my head even
though it always showed the same numbers and lines.  “You were never fully
recovered from that.  You should have been screened out of space duty at your
intake physical.  You should have been assigned to guarding the fence at a
landbase back on Earth.”
    I would have responded, if I could have. 
I would have told him about my galaxy-wide quest and shown him the ancient coin
from the distant empire,