Free City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) by Will Wight Page B

leg, and it took Simon a second or two to see something around his bare ankle, beneath his tattered pants: a coil of smoke wrapped around his leg like a manacle on a prisoner.
    Not a manacle. A chain.
    A chain of shadow or smoke rose from the ground beneath the graveyard, wrapping in coils around each of Valin's ankles.
    “I'm stuck here, now,” the Wanderer said. “And I am no longer an Incarnation, thank you very much. That fades away, with time. I'm nothing more than a room guardian, like Makko or Kortali.”
    The Eldest cleared his throat. “Kortali was destroyed almost twenty years gone.”
    A look of grief flashed across Valin's face. “The forge?”
    The Nye dipped his hood.
    Valin sighed. “Well, I hope she deserved it.”
    Simon couldn’t think of anything else to say to the founder of Valinhall, so he turned to the Eldest instead. “Why?”
    The Nye remained motionless, staring at Simon from his empty black hood. “I still have a task for him. Even death could not erase his debt.”
    A shudder ran through Simon, though he tried to hide it. Surely, even Valin didn’t owe the Eldest as much as Simon did.
    “What task?” Simon asked.
    “You will see,” the Eldest responded. Then he turned back to Valin and bowed over his crossed arms. “The son of Kalman wishes to challenge the graveyard, Master.”
    Valin grinned like a boy on a holiday. “Is that so? Don’t worry, Simon. I’ll go easy.” He tossed both of his swords to the ground and stood, arms spread, waiting for Simon to attack.
    Simon had to stop himself from reaching for his mask.

C HAPTER S IX :
    A T EST AND A G HOST

    359 th Year of the Damascan Calendar
    1 st Year in the Reign of Queen Leah I
    Spring’s Birth

    When he fought, Valin never stopped smiling. Simon couldn’t stand it.
    Over the past two days, the older man had begun to remind him of Indirial: he grinned a lot, made jokes, and taught Simon with much more patience than Kai had ever shown. But Valin, unlike Indirial, frightened him.
    It wasn’t the fact that Simon had initially met the Wanderer as a crazed, bloodthirsty Incarnation, though that played its part. When Valin cut Simon, he cut deep. When he kicked Simon into a pillar, he was there a second later, swinging his blade at Simon’s neck. In every fight, he acted as if he wanted it to be Simon’s last.
    He always stopped at the last second, helped Simon up, and told him what he had done wrong.
    But that didn’t help the fear.
    I wonder why Indirial would take after him? Otoku said sarcastically. It’s not like Valin raised him like a son. Now, if you would kindly help me , then maybe I could stop Valin from knocking you around the graveyard like a child’s brand-new ball.
    Otoku lay twenty paces away in Kai’s lap, as the white-haired man crooned to her and stroked her dark hair with his little brush. Every once in a while, he smoothed out her red flower-print dress.
    You seem to be doing fine on your own, Simon sent back. It was petty revenge for her refusal to help him, but it wasn’t like he could stop Kai from doing whatever he wanted. They shouldn’t hold it against him.
    Beneath a sky of green lightning, Simon leaped over a granite headstone, bringing his blade down two-handed onto Valin’s head. The Wanderer caught Azura’s edge on one of his own gleaming infantry swords, dropping the second one to the grass. With his empty left hand, he hooked Simon’s legs and pulled them into the air, sending Simon flipping over. He slammed into the soft earth with his chin, knocking the air from his lungs and earning a mouthful of mud and grass.
    After Simon’s panicked choking fit subsided, he managed to look up at Valin. The older man was still grinning, the chains on his bare chest crawling. He didn’t say anything, but Simon knew what he was thinking.
    “I know,” Simon said.
    “You shouldn’t go leaping around like that.”
    “I know.”
    “Keep your feet on the ground. You’re not a frog.”
    “I