End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

“Valdin?! The dwarves used to send somebody else. Has a change been made?”

“Greetings, Leon. I’m not here as an emissary of the dwarves. My master would like to speak with you.”

For a couple of seconds, Leon didn’t know who the master was. Who would somebody as highly placed as Valdin, a member of the royal family, call master? The dwarves always sent members of the royal family. There was no risk, and they didn’t mind losing them anyway.

But then, the dwarf let out such a strong aura of death that the flowers wilted, the wine went bitter, and the smell of rot filled the air. Somehow, he was with the undead.

“Hello, little god! Do I need to tell you my name, or have you guessed?”

A god and the undead.

“Talamei! How did you dare get in here? And in the body of that dwarf!”

Using his magic vision, Leon realized that it was an avatar of Talamei standing before him. The amulet on the emissary’s neck was releasing the dark aura, meaning that it was how Talamei had entered the dwarf’s body.

“Ah, you guessed.” The dwarf laughed horribly. “I have many followers all around the world, and I could kill you all if I wanted to. But that’s no fun.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for someone, somebody who dared wound me and escape. He’s a boy, young and gifted in the forbidden magic arts. I found out that you were the one who ordered him to kill my undead in the mountains. So, that means you know the boy…Sagie.” An evil grin twisted the dwarf’s rotting face. The avatar was practically glowing with anticipation.

“Are you talking about the girl with the golden hair?”

“It was a boy, I’m sure. Where is he?”

Leon was stunned, realizing who he’d been talking with.

“I don’t know. I wanted to get him, too, though neither he nor his friend cared about us. They both got away.”

“A young and stupid god,” the avatar said, shaking his head. “I’m not asking what you want. If he doesn’t show up where we fought in the next month, I will destroy one of your castles. That will continue to happen until you find him for me. Also, I’ll send the undead I have hiding in the underground depths into the dwarves’ tunnels to punish them for their impudence. None will escape me.”

“Don’t you think you’re talking awfully big for a corpse?”

A dense flow of energy left Talamei, sending cracks across the walls.

“Like I said, you’re a young, stupid god. You should understand the difference in our strength, even if we are both lower gods. You have one month, Leon.”

The body of the dwarf softened and collapsed on the floor. With one motion of his hand, Leon pummeled the amulet into powder, and Merlen ran into the room with the guards.

“What happened? What stinks?” The treasurer grimaced.

“Talamei was here.”

“Why? What could that animal possibly want?”

“He was looking for Sagie.” Merlen’s face changed. “That’s who wounded Talamei and refused my patronage.”

“What are we going to do?”

“First, we need to scour the city for forbidden items. Talamei entered the dwarf through his amulet, and he can only use things like that to enter his followers. Both his believers and ours are required to wear a symbol of their faith. I want priests at all the city gates to make sure nobody coming in has any dark items. They can charge their magic vision in any of my temples. We’ll be spending a lot more prana, but we’ll be able to cut the legs out from under Talamei and limit his choices.”

“What else?”

“We’re going to look for that Sagie! Do whatever you need to do to fund the search.”

***

Carl and Malcolm Shultz were sitting in the orphanage supervisor’s room. Both brothers worked there, and they had picked up their parents’ habit of doing a good job. The other tradition they’d picked up was to sit down and drink tea every Saturday evening.

“What do you think about our wards?” Malcolm was the financial consultant. His responsibility was to figure out what they could offer sponsors.

“Incredible!” Carl’s wont for brevity had been instilled in him during his army time.

“Care to go into more detail?”

“They’re incredible! Each of them has their own personality, and I’m doing the best I can to nurture that. They’re smart, growing every day. And, okay, they might be too expressive, hot-tempered, and egotistical sometimes, but that’s just the price of genius. Mr. Bork was right to send his grandson here. Children grow faster in the right environment. Geniuses with other geniuses, and we have the first among equals.”

Carl had become contemplative after the army. Soldiers all change in their own way, and Carl, for example, had learned how to enjoy the observations he was able to draw.

“I can tell you like the work.” Malcolm took a sip of his bergamot orange tea. “And who is our little Caesar?”

“A very quiet boy named Anji Ganet. As I watch him, I sometimes forget that he’s a child. He’s always tense and collected, he isn’t afraid of anything, and he doesn’t cause problems. But it’s his calm and ability to be silent that set him apart from the others. If there’s no point talking, he just listens, which sates his need for communication.”

“Is that all it takes to make him Caesar?”

“No… It isn’t that. You know, he scares me. In the army, they taught us to be shadows, moving discreetly and sensing the attention of others. That’s what made me so observant. Anji always knows when I’m walking up to him.” Carl smiled. “And he always greets me right then, just to show me that he knows. He’s like a trained soldier with a nose for danger, always ready to fight off an attack.”

“That’s more like a warrior