The Diamond of Darkhold - 4 Read Online Free Page B

and warped. That was a waste of a good match, Lina thought.
    Doon turned the book over in his hands and looked at its cover. Then he looked up at the roamer. “You got this up in the mountains?”
    “Yep. Right near a—” She clapped a hand over her mouth and cackled. “But he told me not to tell,” she said between her grubby fingers.
    “Near what?” Doon demanded. “ Who told you not to tell?”
    The roamer just grinned and shook her head. She tossed the last of her trading goods back into the wagon, and as she worked, she hummed a little tune—a tune that somehow sounded familiar to Lina, though she didn’t know why. When the bags and boxes were all stowed away, the roamer took hold of the horse’s harness.
    “Wait,” Lina said. “May I touch that horse?”
    The roamer looked surprised, but she nodded. Lina patted the horse’s shaggy side, and it rolled its big eye at her and huffed gently through its black nose holes. She combed her fingers through the tangled hair on its neck; she reached up high and stroked its soft ear.
    “When he was young,” said the roamer, “I used to ride him.”
    “ Ride? You mean you got on his back? Does he go fast?”
    “He used to,” said the roamer, giving the horse a couple of pats.
    “Faster than a bicycle?” asked Lina.
    The roamer laughed. “Faster than the water in the river.” Then she tugged the reins, and the horse picked up a lanky leg and started forward. The roamer, leading the horse, walked away. Her sheep straggled behind.
    Lina was about to say goodbye to Doon, but he took hold of her arm. “Lina,” he said, “look at this.” There was something in his voice that made her turn to him in surprise. He held out the book, showing her the cover. “Directions for Use,” it said in large print.
    “Use of what?” said Lina. “I don’t understand.”
    “No, look down here,” said Doon, pointing at smaller print at the cover’s lower edge.
    Lina peered at it. “For the people from Em,” it said, and then there was a blot of something on the last part of the word. But it didn’t matter. She knew what the word was. She looked up at Doon, wide-eyed.
    “Ember,” they said, both speaking at the same time.

CHAPTER 3
_________________
    The Book of Eight Pages
    The next morning, Doon showed up at the door of the doctor’s house, looking for Lina. “She’s out in back,” said Mrs. Murdo, “hanging up the wash.”
    Doon found her in the midst of clothes and covers flapping in the chilly wind. She was hoisting things up over a cord strung between the house and a tree, pinning them in place with split sticks. “Lina,” he said. “I have to talk to you.”
    She came out from behind a large damp skirt (one of Doctor Hester’s). “Good,” she said. “What have you figured out?” The day before, after they’d recognized the word “Ember” on the cover, Doon had gone quickly back home to read through what was left of the book’s pages.
    “It’s definitely something from the ancient world,” he said now, “but I can’t tell exactly what. You know how many pages are left in this book? Eight! And most of them are from the back. That roamer must have started tearing them out one by one from the beginning. But the back pages are mostly diagrams and math and words I don’t understand.”
    “Can you understand any of it?” Lina asked, pulling a wet shirt out of the laundry basket.
    “Just a little, here and there, but it’s enough to give me a few clues. I think the book must be about a machine of some sort, maybe something electric. I can make out the word ‘current,’ for instance. Doesn’t that sound like electricity?”
    “I don’t know,” said Lina. “It could mean the current of a river.” Doon was so fascinated by electricity that anything could sound electric to him, she thought.
    “There’s also ‘crystal’ and ‘shine,’” Doon said.
    Lina flopped the shirt over the clothesline. “That sounds more like