Free The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) by Mark Whiteway

on the old man’s shoulder. “Hello, Ennas.”
    The man raised his own hand, and placed it over the hand of his visitor. His voice shook slightly. “Alondo. It’s you, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, it’s me. How are you keeping?”
    “I am just fine. Malan is not back from the fields yet. How is Hedda?”
    “Oh, mother is still her cheery self.” Alondo pulled up a crudely fashioned stool. The wooden floor of the shack was swept clean. There was an old chest in one corner and two rough pallets in the back, but it was otherwise bare.
      “It’s kind of you to visit an old blind man. Malan will be sad to have missed you. He often speaks of you and Lyall. Are you two still together?”
    “We stay in touch, yes.” Alondo looked down at his hands, feeling a mixture of anguish and guilt. Ennas had lost two sons at the revolt in Persillan some ten turns ago. Malan, his third son, had melted away in the ensuing confusion, along with Lyall and himself. When Ennas’ wife died a turn later, his last surviving son had taken him in. It was clear that times had been hard for them in the intervening years.
    “Ennas, I have a confession to make. I came to ask if you know anything about what’s happening in Corte.”
    “You mean the incident with the Keltar?”
    “So Malan told you about it?”
    The old man made a harrumphing sound. “The talk among the field workers is of little else. The Prophet’s soldiers left that night, but the following morning two more companies arrived and began shoving people around. Word is that they have a local innkeeper under arrest and are interrogating him for information about a girl that worked there.”
    Alondo’s mind was working furiously as he absorbed the news. This is bad. If Shann’s former employer talks, then the troops will be here next. In fact, they may even be on their way right now.
    Alondo took the old man’s wrinkled hand in his own. The skin felt leathery. “Ennas I’m sorry, I have to leave. I have someone waiting for me. Will you be all right?”
    “Don’t worry about me. Malan will be home soon. Are you sure you can’t stay?”
    “Tell Malan I have to go away for a while, but I will see you both when I return.” He paused, then reaching into his coin purse, took out half an astria and placed it firmly in Ennas’ palm, closing the man’s gaunt fingers around it. Whatever Lyall thought of his other purchases, Alondo was certain he would approve of this one.
    He stood up and turned to go. As he did so, the old man spoke. “The man in Corte, the man who fought a Keltar and tried to free the ‘tributes’?” Ennas’ blind eyes seemed to see farther than any sighted person. “I’d like to meet him one day.”
    ~
    Lyall sat thoughtfully for a moment in the farmhouse’s comfortable sitting room, weighing consequences. Then he met Alondo’s questioning gaze. “We have to leave, now.”
    “You mean, for Gort?”
    Lyall nodded.
    “Ennas was all fired up by what happened in Corte. I imagine a lot of people are. I wonder what he would say if he knew it was you.” Alondo paused. “You know, Malan would have come with us without hesitation if you had asked him.”
    “I know. But if anything were to happen to Ennas` last son, how could I look the old man in the face?” Lyall`s expression was dark.
    “What happened at Persillan was not your fault, you know.”
    “I know.”
    There was a silence between both men, charged with the memory of loss . A complex of oddly shaped white buildings. People in white clothing running in all directions. The discovery of a large bronze coloured globe, with strange protuberances. An incandescent white light. Then death, destruction, the broken and charred bodies of comrades…
    It was Alondo who finally broke the mood. “What are we going to do about Shann?”
    “She’s coming with us. I had considered trying to persuade her to stay with Hedda or Moina, but that would put everyone at risk. We have no choice.”
    “But she’s