Free The Last Whisper of the Gods by James Berardinelli Page B

Yet, like the strange visitors who secreted themselves with Warburm at the inn, here was something else to ponder while mucking stalls and brushing stallions.
    “How many others know about you and Lamanar?” he asked.
    “Only a few, those who need to know, and they have been sworn to secrecy on the most sacred of oaths.”
    An idea came to Sorial. “Warburm is one of them.”
    Kara was surprised, and the tremor in her words confirmed Sorial’s suspicion. “Of course not!”
    “You’re lying.” It was perhaps the first thing she had said to him today he was sure wasn’t true. She gave him a pleading look but said nothing.
    “How am I supposed to react to this, Mother? Go back to the inn and do what I’ve been doing for years? Keep coming here and pretend we’re just an ordinary son and mother?”
    The steel in Kara’s voice surprised Sorial. “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do. This isn’t a game, Sorial. I’ll apologize as many times as you think necessary, but neither of us can change what is. It isn’t fair, but you’re old enough to know that little about life is fair. What you and I - and others - are involved in is in deadly earnest. Dangerous times.”
    At those words, Sorial had a sickening flashback to staring down the muzzle of a pistol.

CHAPTER FIVE: COOLING OFF
     
    The night after the pivotal conversation with his mother, sleep eluded Sorial; for hours, an overactive mind denied his tired body rest as he tossed and turned on his lumpy straw bed. The next few days were days spent in a sullen funk. He did his chores but avoided contact with others, including his friends. Even the sunrises failed to provide their customary comfort. His mind churned, trying to figure out how things connected. But the evidence was too scant for him to piece together the fragments of a puzzle that would answer the most basic question of his existence: Who was he?
    The rest of Summer passed uneventfully but Sorial didn’t again visit Kara. She made no attempt to contact him at the stable, although a part of him hoped she would. He missed the bond they had been forming - an estranged son and mother coming together - but he knew an encounter now would be awkward. What could they have to talk about? The secrets were too much of a barrier. Until she was willing to open up and be honest with him… Sorial didn’t only want to know everything, he wanted to understand everything, but a tiny part of him acknowledged that Kara could be right and he might not yet be ready for the truth in its fullness.
    Harvest began with an unprecedented heat wave. The latter days of Summer had been uncommonly cool and rainy but the furnace blast from the south withered crops in the fields and unpicked produce on the vines. As always during times of excessive heat, the inside of the stable felt like an oven and stank to the point where even Sorial’s acclimated nostrils found the odor offensive. As someone who spent most of his time out of doors, Sorial had become used to weather extremes, but he preferred the cold to the heat. One could always pile on more furs or light a fire; there was only so much one could take off, even if propriety wasn’t a consideration.
    On Restday morning - the ninth day of the heat wave - Sorial was doing his final cleaning of the stable in preparation for his afternoon off when a voice called his name from outside. “It stinks in there. I ain’t coming in.” It was Rexall, Sorial’s closest friend.
    “I bet it’s worse at The Delicious Dancer,” replied Sorial, referring to the inn where Rexall worked as stableboy. He speared a mound of straw with his pitchfork and tossed it in the direction of one of the horse’s legs. The animal didn’t notice.
    Rexall, a tall, stout boy of about Sorial’s age, stood resolutely outside, his freckled nose wrinkled with disgust. An immigrant from the eastern city of Earlford, Rexall bore the characteristic traits of the place of his birth: red hair, a fair