Read Online Call Of The Flame (Book 1) by James R. Sanford - Free Book Online

hair.  “Perhaps I should warn him
as well,” he said to himself, “in case of threat from the land.”  He shook his
head as if to clear it.  “But watch the sea, Zahaias.  Send word to my cell if
anyone comes.”
    “I will.”
    Sorrin nodded a curt farewell,
turned, and walked away along the parapet until he was just a ghost on the far
battlements.  Zahaias returned to his watch.  A faint wind was rising with the
incoming tide.
    Kyric interrupted him.  “Who was this Sorrin and what made
him have dreams like that?”
    “He was our founder, the
greatest knight of our order,” Aiyan said.  “And I don’t think Sorrin himself
knew why he had those visions, waking and sleeping.  I know that some magicians
learn the art of dreaming and can enter the dreams of others.  In your case, I
think the Unknowable Forces are intruding on your dreams, and that happens to
some of us.  But I believe that Master Sorrin was so immaculate a warrior that
his dream self was like a mirror, and that it was he who looked into the
dreams of the Powers.  Now let me continue.  This next part will reveal much.”
    Sorrin returned to his cell and dressed in the tunic of his
office.  Sitting cross-legged on his pallet, sword laid bare on the floor
before him, he waited, studying the runeblade that had been carried by all the
first masters before him.  In the last hour of the night the candle burned low,
then out.
    Now he became aware of the faintest light; a dim grey dawn
outlined the shutters of his window.  He heard a rhythm, steady, unyielding. 
An echo.  Close now.  Footfalls.  He rose quickly, sword held low but ready,
then he froze, listening, hearing only his own heartbeat.  At the door of the
room, shadows clustered thickly, a chill seeping in.
    “Come then, if you will,” he whispered fiercely.
    The door slowly drifted inward.  Black against the dusk, a
huge helmeted figure entered with a single stride.
    “It,” Sorrin said, faltering, “is you.”
    “Yes.”
    “I . . . I heard you coming.”
    “I made no sound,” said Cauldin, removing the greathelm. 
The pupils of his eyes, enormous, scintillated with crimson streaks deep
within, like those of a nocturnal predator.
    “Tell me what has happened.”
    “Aumgraudmal is slain and by my hand.”
    Sorrin nodded slowly.  “Then he did not speak.”
    “Oh yes,” spat Cauldin with a sound that served as laughter,
“he spoke.  After I had looked into his eyes and he took my will from me, he
revealed all.  He told me how he devoured Temma while the old man’s heart still
beat, how the living blood of the magus mixed with his own and gave him this
new power, and how I would be the first of a dark cabal — men skilled in the
ways of the unseen, all strung on invisible lines across the realm of power,
puppets of the will of Aumgraudmal.  He would have become our god.”
    Sorrin strained to see him clearly.  All of Cauldin’s
vestments, his tunic, corselet, breeches, even his gloves, were stained inky
black — the black blood of the sea dragons.
    “But,” Cauldin continued, “the final act, intended to forge
the link of his domination, allowed me to share his power instead of becoming
subject to it.”
    “Tell me,” said Sorrin, a fear he did not understand
beginning to rise.
    “You already know.”
    “Tell me.”
    “He opened an artery and I drank his blood.  My power
unfurled like a great sail, and it was I who rode the wind of the realm of
power.  Then he gazed into my eyes.  And for a moment it was he who knew fear.  Aumgraudmal opened his jaws, but before his poisonous breath
could issue forth I thrust my sword into his palate and pierced his brain.”
    Sorrin stood motionless, sword still in hand.
    “Why do you look at me so?” Cauldin said.
    “Because I fear my oldest friend and I do not know why.”
    “I know why.  And you as well.  It is because I came here to
share the dragon power with you.”
    “Dragons do not share power.