Free Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms by Mark Whiteway

a
hand 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