Free Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within by J.L. Doty Page B

kill
him.”
    The old witch hesitated, though her magic
swirled about her and demanded to be used.
    AnnaRail quickly filled the silence. “He
didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t his fault. I warned you to
move carefully. His power is extensive, and he has too little
training for its control.”
    Olivia lowered her hand and the room became
still, though she looked upon Morgin like a bug she might squash,
and her eyes glowed with malevolence. But strangely enough there
was a hint of gladness there too, and a faint smile of greedy
smugness. She looked at AnnaRail and spoke through clenched teeth.
“You are right, daughter. You did warn me, and I should have heeded
you.”
    Then she looked again at Morgin and he
cringed. “You are forgiven this time, peasant, because of your
ignorance. But never, ever, strike me again.”
    Morgin, staring at the floor and thinking
that he’d touched no one, decided it was best to keep his mouth
shut.
    Olivia’s mood suddenly changed, and she
smiled openly. She turned back to AnnaRail. “You were also right
about his power. It is extensive. Certainly more than anyone else
his age has exhibited.”
    Her eyes narrowed with concentration, and
for a long silent moment she thought carefully. Morgin had no doubt
that whatever she might be considering bode ill for him. “I have
come to a decision,” she announced suddenly. “Such power should
reside within House Elhiyne. And so the child’s twelfth birthday
will be officially recorded as the eighth day of the next month of
this year. And on that day he will be adopted into House Elhiyne as
your son, and we will have a Naming. Between now and that time you
will give him as much training in the arcane as he can absorb, and
if need be, he will be excused from his other lessons. You will
teach him control, for he will never again be allowed to do what he
has done this day. And someday, he will prove useful to us.”
    She looked at each of them separately for a
moment, and especially at Morgin. “I have spoken. It shall be so.
Now leave me. I wish to be alone.”
    Without a word Roland and AnnaRail bowed and
backed out of the room. Morgin did not need to be told to do the
same.

 
     
     
    Chapter
5: A Wizard’s Name
     
     
    Morgin sat on the floor in the center of the
Hall of Wills, a vast, cavernous room, the place the villagers
called The Wizard’s Hall. With the exception of a simple loin cloth
he was naked, and by that fact ill at ease, for clanfolk high and
low filled the Hall, almost everyone who lived in the near vicinity
of Elhiyne. He sat stiffly upright, his legs tucked beneath him,
his hands at his sides. Before him a circle of fine black sand had
been sprinkled in a thin layer on the gray stone of the bare floor,
and all about him the ceremony of the Naming was in progress,
witches chanting words of power, casting spells of incomprehensible
nature to mere Morgin.
    Twelve days before they had executed the
formal adoption ceremony and he had become a member of House
Elhiyne: the family that ruled the clan that ruled the eighth tribe
of the Shahot. He still hoped to someday understand what all that
meant, though for now he was content with his ignorance.
    After the adoption they’d begun preparations
for the Naming: twelve days of fasting and intense ritual. Morgin
had had little to do, for he was the “new born infant,” and as such
was the passive object of the preparations, and not actively
involved in any way.
    On the day of the Naming he’d been allowed
no food. The women of the house had bathed him carefully, then with
charcoal from a fire twelve days cold, they had written runes on
his naked body. He was then directed to sit on the cold stone floor
before the circle of fine black sand, and the Naming was begun.
    He’d been sitting there for hours now, his
joints stiff and sore, his stomach growling for food. He longed for
the ceremony to end, even while he knew it was only just
beginning.
    A sudden gasp ran through