Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

window hang. “I'm worried that Baldr is angling for the same thing I want to do. I want to destroy the Caul and deal with the Drachan once and for all. But after hearing that he wants to do the same thing... I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we SHOULD be preserving the Caul.”

“Yeah, but if the Drachan are all dead, we don't need a Caul.” Karalti began to groom her foreclaws, nibbling at them with her sharp front teeth. “If you tried to save the Caul, that’d be dumb. It’d be like trying to keep a hatchling in its shell once the egg has already started to crack. Once the cracks start, the baby is gonna come out whether we're ready or not.”

“Yeah. In this case, it's not a baby, just a bunch of howling void horrors.” I chuckled, steeled myself, and accepted the quest.

[You have accepted a quest: Know Thy Enemy!]

[New markers added to your maps: Vulkan Keep Library, Karhad University Archives, Royal Library of Vlachia]

“Guess I know where I'm spending the rest of the day.” With a sigh, I called up a map of Vulkan Keep, checked to see where the library was, and got to my feet. “You rest up, Tidbit. Let me know if you get bored. I'll send you something to dismember.”

“That'd be nice. Dismemberment is always fun, unless it happens to one of my friends. Which reminds me: I hope Vash gets better soon. I want to learn how to fight like a Baru from him sooo bad.”

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s up and running yet. Last I checked, he was still unavailable to assign to anything.” It crossed my mind to check the heroes menu, but I was too annoyed and it felt like too much work – especially considering what I was about to go and do.

I left Karalti narfing away at the dead scaleson her elbows and legged it for the castle. It was a decent walk. Vulkan Keep was built into the open face of Mt. Racosul, the dormant volcano that loomed over Taltos. The main keep rested in an enormous cavern partly carved from the native rock. It was a blocky, brutal-looking place, nearly invisible from the air and difficult to assault from any direction. The mountain provided shelter from above, boiling hot springs gushed from beneath it, and a deep valley loomed below. It wasn’t pretty, but if Vlachia was ever attacked, I'd rather be here than in the exposed towers of Kalla Sahasi.

Inside, Vulkan Keep was an austere cathedral of sweeping polished black halls. Furnace vents carrying hot air from the volcanic springs kept it pleasantly warm. Red patterned carpets muffled the echoing crack of bootheels on the stone floors, but voices carried from every corner to the Keep's great hall, where a single long carpet led to the towering black Raven Throne. I was surprised to see Ignas standing near the front of the hall, talking with the Dakhari emissary who had been at the Parliament meeting. The dark-skinned man was stroking his moustache, listening and nodding as Ignas said something in a hushed whisper and then stepped away.

“Ah, just the man I was hoping to see,” he called out as I tried to sneak around them. “Count Dragozin, did you happen to meet the Honorable Pasha?”

“We had to leave early.” I resigned myself to having to socialize some more, and wandered over.

“The Count and Countess of Myszno were the pair I was telling you about, Pasha,” Ignas said smoothly, positioning himself to include me in the circle of conversation. “You really should consider their suggestion, you know. There's a lot to be said for earning the faith of Starborn. I credit both him and Suri for the victory against that damnable vampire.”

“I have heard the Tuun are fierce warriors. Apparently, those scholarly rumors are true: a victory against the Corpse Kings is unusual enough to be of great merit,” Pasha said. Or... the Pasha. I wasn't sure if it was his name or a title. He extended a hand. “A pleasure, Count Dragozin.”

“Same.” The Dakhari emissary’s hand was soft and moist. I jerked it limply a couple of times and gratefully let go. Up close, he smelled strongly of perfume. “Suri is just as responsible for that victory as I am. We co-led the Myszno Defense Force against the Demon.”

“Suri? That is the name of your 'companion'?” He flashed yellowing teeth.

Standing near this guy was like getting maced in the eyes by one of those automated public toilet air-freshener dispensers. I took a step back, trying to get some distance. “Sure is. Definitely an honor to have her near the head of the table today, wasn’t it?”

“Indeed. Suri Ba’Hadir is a fine woman and a fine warrior,” Ignas interjected, squeezing my shoulder warningly.

“Ba’Hadir?” The Pasha got a strange expression. “That is an ancient name. Most definitely not one suited to a Shallatu like her.”

My temper spiked, and before I realized what I was doing, I shrugged Ignas' hand off and took a step toward him. “What did you just call her?”

The nobleman blanched, and held up his hands placatingly. “Shallatu is not an insult, Count Dragozin, merely a descriptive word in my native tongue to describe someone of her born social position. To be Fireblooded like... Suri... is to be without caste. Her ancestors were shunned from society, but that is not her fault, or the fault of any individual living today. Every man and woman is born to their station in Dakhdir, and every man and woman may be reincarnated into a higher station, should they lead a virtuous life. By her acts of heroism, she shall almost surely do just that.”

“It is a social custom we do not practice in Vlachia, but we respect all customs as part of the terms of the Alliance,” Ignas said, glancing at me. “And by turn, we here in Vlachia are not as liberal as Hercynia. Queen Eevi, charming as she is, finds some of our