Free The Frostwoven Crown (Book 4) by Andrew Hunter Page A

started to protest, but Klavicus tapped the rim with a long fingernail, and Garrett saw that the cup was filled with fruit juice instead of blood. "Thank you," he said, and Klavicus patted him once on the shoulder before going.
    "You know him?" Marla asked.
    The Valfrei took a long sip from her cup and licked her lips. "We studied together in our youth," she said, "I'm happy that he has finally found work more suited to his... abilities."
    Marla's face darkened. "Klavicus is a great help to us here," she said, "Mother and I have always depended on him to..."
    A sudden screech of violin music cut her off. Then the sound of drums and a flute, low and mournful, joined in, and everyone's attention turned to the stage.
    Two vampire women, dressed in yellow silk jerkins and hose and wearing featureless masks of white wood, burst from the red curtains at the back to dance across the stage. Each one held a dark leather bag in one hand, and with her free hand, reached in and drew out a handful of bright green powder that she cast into the fire of each brazier in turn. As soon as the powder hit the hot coals, a thick, yellowish smoke began to rise and swirl above the stage, forming a roiling cloud that seemed to pulse and shift in hue with every beat of the music.
    Garrett watched in fascination, certain that some form of magic was at work in the strange pulsing of the smoke. He stared, wide-eyed, as the smoke billowed and rolled with shapes half-formed and half-seen. Faces of people and images of vast cities and soaring dragons flickered in the shimmering cloud as the weird music swelled to a feverish crescendo. The two dancing girls had left the stage, and the hall lights had dimmed now until only strange flickers of light, like lighting in a night storm, shone above the stage. Then the music stopped, and everything went black.
    Garrett held his breath.
    A single boom of a kettledrum brought the light back, and Garrett looked down to see a small group of men, dressed in red and black robes upon the stage. They wore dark eye makeup and sullen expressions beneath tall headdresses, not dissimilar to the one that Garrett wore. The men carried long staffs and moved their feet as though walking, and, though they did not move forward, the swirling illusion of the smoke around them gave the impression that they were traveling through a vast and wind-swept desert. The violins groaned and the flute gave voice to the desert wind.
    "In the Time of Dying," a voice cried out, "men wandered the earth in search of solace and refuge from the horrors of the outer world."
    Suddenly the robed actors looked up in terror and dropped to their knees on the stage as the smoke roiled in the shape of some vast, winged thing that swept down out of the yellow sky. The smoky shadow passed among them, and, suddenly, one of the men was gone in a swirl of smoke. As the vapors cleared, the remaining men got to their feet again and mimed the steps of their stony-faced trek once more.
    "Those that survived the passing," the narrator said, "came at last to a place forgotten by the race of men."
    The men on stage slowly turned, and the smoke swirled with them to reveal the outline of a great, ruined city of domes and spires at the edge of a foreboding mountain range. Before its gates rose a single tower, a column of jet-black smoke, featureless and narrow.
    "The men approached boldly, heedless of danger, for they knew that death followed close behind."
    The robed men seemed to draw nearer to the ruined city as they walked, and the black tower rose above them.
    "Perhaps the great guardian slept and dreamed," the narrator said, "or perhaps it saw in them no threat to its ancient masters and ignored the men as it ignored the crawling beetles that scurried in the empty halls of forgotten song. It let them live, and let them pass."
    The actors on the stage continued their pretend march, looking around in marvel as the city's walls enveloped them.
    "Chief among them was one