Prologue
THE SERPENT
SEBLIK NA LAREON could no longer turn back.
The mob bore him onward like a tide that had no ebb, just flow. Thousands had gone ahead safely during the night. Now the first flames sprang up behind them, the first glass shattered, the first doors splintered under spiked boots.
Understanding had come to the king. He had set his soldiers on them.
Seblik was not of them, he bore no mark, but stragglers would be killed without a second look—or with a second look, given too late, and then perhaps a shrug of thin remorse as the bloody mistake was lost underfoot. Seblik na Lareon was a modest scribe, a translator, no more. The vision of himself as that trampled body fueled the imperative to flee.
Too late, too late. He must keep on, he must go faster—he was a sheep with mad dogs at his heels, the cries of the mob sounded like the blatting of ewes. But where? Run where?
A woman near him staggered, went to her knees. He dragged himself back against the flow, helped he ... read full excerpt from Illumination ebook
