Indomitus Oriens (The Fovean Chronicles) Read Online Free Page A

it.             
                  His advisor, Avek Noir, also a Caster, had suggested they try to write it down. The letters scorched the parchment when they tried. Clearly this song came from Power, or Adriam, or one of the gods who imbued their minions with magic. This made the decision more serious.
                  Had Chaheff Tamulin himself been the recipient of the song, then there would be no question. House Tamulin were merchants, and Chaheff looked it, standing there in the throne room behind her, the fattest of all of the Uman-Chi. But Chaheff, a gifted Caster, had discovered The Ultimate Truth of Things before his two hundredth year. He could handle any ramifications of any song he voiced. Glynn Escaroth had come to that same truth at the impossibly young age of ninety-five. While her friends had been learning etiquette and discourse, she had been diverted to spell casting and donned the White Robe.
    If she couldn’t maintain control of the song then there could be no guarantee she wouldn’t loose all the power of the spell on those around her. In Uman-Chi terms, less than seventy years was to have barely begun training.
                  Angron had decreed then that Glynn would not sing. That had been six months before this day. Now she returned, the song still burning in her mind.
    “If the song will not depart your mind,” Angron said, “then clearly you must sing. The question is where.”
                  “I still advise against the casting,” Avek Noir said. Glynn detested the Noirs, who had bought their way back into the King’s favor after the sack of Outpost IX. “But I defer to the throne, and then advise a fast ship, a trip into Tren Bay, and there singing.”
                  The King nodded. Glynn grudgingly agreed, much as she dreaded the water. She lowered her head in obeisance, her long green hair falling before her face. Eldadorian ‘Sea Wolves’ sailed in defiance of the Trenboni ‘Tech Ship’ on Tren Bay. Armed with ‘Eldadorian Fire,’ they’d become the scourge of the sea and a tremendous threat to all other ships.
                  “I disagree,” D’gattis the Far Traveled said from the gallery. Also in the white robes of a Caster, his were adorned with a yellow mark down the front, something resembling a hook and a dot. D’gattis came from a family which had never produced anything but gifted Casters, himself no exception. As a member of the mercenary army, the ‘Daff Kanaar,’ D’gattis as an Uman-Chi was out of favor, Glynn knew.
    D’gattis as a Caster was indomitable. Chaheff himself deferred to him. Angron summoned him here to advise because no one else had his knowledge.
    “This is the place of power. This is where Uman-Chi and Cheyak wards protect us, not the Bay. If it is the will of the All-Father that we should be spared, then we will be spared, and if not then there is nothing we can do to prevent that.
                  “Pretending we can circumvent His will is as ill-advised as was not letting her sing six months ago.”
                  “You speak plainly,” Angron commented. “You amaze me, D’gattis, for your association with the Conqueror.”
                  D’gattis inclined his head and spread his hands, palms up. “Your Majesty, if I am frank, then I am frank in deference to your time and your importance,” he said. “The Emperor does not dictate to me. He is a Man, and his entire life is a blink of an eye.”
                  “Perhaps he is the sliver in an Uman-Chi eye,” Chaheff said. “Because this blink has pained us.”
                  “I must agree with D’gattis,” Aniquen Demoran said. Glynn controlled the smile that begged to cross her lips, her head still down. Aniquen was young and handsome, his house a high one, and he merely five decades her senior.
    More importantly, Aniquen had