Judge (Books of the Infinite Book #2)

J. Larson R.

Description

A Fantasy Saga Fueled by Adventure and FaithThe last thing Kien Lantec expects on his first day of military leave is to receive marching orders from his Creator, the Infinite. Orders that don't involve destroyer-racing or courting the love of his life, Ela. Adding to Kien's frustration, his Infinite-ordained duties have little to do with his skills as a military judge-in-training. His mission? To warn the people of ToronSea against turning their backs to the Infinite to worship a new goddess.But why Kien? Isn't this the role of a true prophet, such as Ela of Parne?Seeking answers, Kien visits Ela and finds her stricken by a devastating vision of her own. Her birthplace, Parne, has been corrupted by her enemies and will soon suffer judgment. Pulled in separate ways, each must seek to follow the Infinite's leading and hope He will reunite them again soon.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441260482
• Langue: English

Extrait

© 2012 by R. J. Larson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-6048-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Wes Youssi/M.80 Design
Cover photography by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studio, Inc.
To all adventurers who wish an epic destroyer would follow them home.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Character List
Map
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35
36 37
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
An excerpt from King
Back Ad
Back Cover
Character List
Kien Lantec \ Kee -en Lan -tek\ Military judge-advocate for the Tracelands
Ela Roeh \ El -ah Roe -eh\ Prophet of Parne
Ara Lantec \ Are -ah Lan -tek\ Rade Lantec’s wife, Kien’s mother
General Rol \Rawl\ The Tracelands’ General of the Army
Tamri Het \ Tam -ree Het\ Citizen of Munra, Siphra
Tzana Roeh \ Tsaw -nah Roe -eh\ Ela’s sister
Beka Thel \ Bek -ah Thell\ Jon Thel’s wife, Kien’s sister
Jon Thel \Jon Thell\ A Tracelands military commander, Beka’s husband
Rade Lantec \Raid Lan -tek\ Kien’s father, the Tracelands’ preeminent statesman
Ruestock \ Roo -stock\ Exiled former Siphran ambassador to the Tracelands
Tsir Aun \Sir Awn \ Istgard’s prime minister, Tek Lara’s husband
Bel-Tygeon \Bell- Ty -jee-on\ King of Belaal
Akabe Garric \Ah- cabe Gair -rick\ Former Siphran rebel, the Infinite’s chosen king of Siphra
Zade Chacen \ Zaid Chase -en\ Parne’s deposed chief priest
Sius Chacen \ See -es Chase -en\ Elder son of Zade Chacen
Za’af Chacen \ Zay -aff Chase -en\ Second son of Zade Chacen
Dan Roeh \Dan Roe -eh\ Ela’s father
Kalme Roeh \ Call -may Roe -eh\ Ela’s mother
Ninus \ Nine -es\ King of the island-city Adar-iyr
Matron Prill \prill\ Ela’s chaperone
Ishvah Nesac \Ish- vaw Ness -ak\ The Infinite’s chosen chief priest of Parne
Siyrsun \ Seer -sun\ Belaal’s General of the Army

1
K ien Lantec lifted his chin, pressed his fingers against his wet skin, and then swept the razor up his throat just as the Infinite’s voice resonated within his thoughts.
You will go to ToronSea.
“Ow!” Jolted by the voice, Kien gasped as the blade pierced his skin. He dropped the razor and leaped backward as it clattered on the tiled floor, threatening his bare toes. Hearing from one’s Creator evidently involved undreamed-of risks. Not to mention worrisome symptoms that included sweating, tremors, and an unnervingly rapid heart rate. Kien exhaled and thumped a clammy fist against his heart. Steady.
ToronSea? Why? He’d just returned home on military leave. His first leave! And ToronSea was at the edge of nowhere, governed by a pack of argumentative antisocials who were supposed to be civilized Tracelanders. Controlling himself, Kien smudged some powdered balm against the bloodied nick beneath his jaw. “Go to ToronSea?”
You will warn My faithful in ToronSea of My displeasure because they are beguiled by certain Siphran worshipers of Atea. Tell the one who speaks for them that he must be faithful to Me and seek My will. You must also speak to certain deceived ones who love Atea. Tell them only that I see their failings and seek their hearts. The wise will hear Me.
Worshipers of Atea. Weren’t they given over to disturbing little quirks like divination through watching the death throes of victims in ritual strangulations? Kien hoped the oft-repeated stories were unfounded. He didn’t relish being the target of a divination ritual. “But, Infinite, I’m not a prophet. I’m a ”
Are you My servant?
Defeated before he’d begun. “Yes. I am your servant.” Kien meant every word of his pledge, but he didn’t have to feel comfortable about it, did he? He moistened his lips. “Am I no longer training to be a military judge?”
Waiting silence answered. Kien exhaled, retrieved his razor, and tried to ask an answerable question. “Should I depart today?”
Yes.
“Will I survive?”
More Omnipotent silence. Survival, evidently, shouldn’t be his first consideration. “Fine. I’ll finish shaving, then organize a few details and gather my gear. Will one knapsack suffice?”
He paused. Nothing. It seemed he must answer most of his own questions. And he had plenty to ask. For example, why wasn’t the Infinite sending His true prophet, Ela of Parne, to confront ToronSea? No, sending Ela into any situation where her life might be endangered was completely unacceptable. For Ela’s sake, Kien would go to ToronSea himself.
Ela . . . Kien grinned into his polished metal mirror and finished shaving. He now had an ideal excuse to visit the most captivating person in East Guard. No doubt Ela would
“Kien?” His mother’s voice echoed up the stairwell steps to his tower room. “ Keee -en!”
He hurriedly wiped his face and smoothed his tunic before opening the door. Ara Lantec marched up the last few spiraling stone steps and stopped on the landing. Cool gray eyes narrowed, she folded her elegant arms and glared, her usually serene face a study of restrained maternal fury. “Your destroyer is eating my garden! My whole garden! Unless you can control that monster, your father will have him shot by archers, then butchered and stewed!”
Kien saw six months of military wages vanish, consumed by a gargantuan warhorse’s gluttony. “Sorry. I’ll pay for the damages.”
Ara seethed. “Paying for my garden won’t help me this evening. My reception is ruined!”
He wasn’t about to offer advice for saving his mother’s reception a gathering of the Tracelands’ most elite women. Wives of members of the Grand Assembly. And their daughters, whom Kien devoutly hoped to escape. No doubt his parents would be planning his wedding the instant he smiled at one of those spoiled girls. Kien kissed his mother’s perfectly arranged dark hair, hoping to soothe her. She scowled.
Barefoot, he started down the stairs. “Don’t worry. You’ll be rid of me and the destroyer by midday. I’m leaving on an assignment.”
“What? You’ve just returned after six months of duty.”
“It’s an emergency.” And that emergency looked positively inviting compared to his mother’s wrath not to mention her reception. Several steps down, he hesitated and looked up. “Anyway, I thought you wanted me gone.”
“No, I simply want you to kill that destroyer!”
“Oh, sure.” Kien hoped she hadn’t caught his sarcasm. Chaining the beast, not killing it, would have to suffice. Kien rushed down the spiraling stone steps and charged through the stairwell’s open doorway, into the adjoining hall. “Scythe!”
He found the black monster-horse in Mother’s formal garden, dwarfing a crimson stand of miniature spice trees, crunching down leaf after expensive leaf. The massive creature turned his rump toward Kien and flicked his long black tail.
Kien growled. “I know you heard me. Don’t you dare turn away!”
Scythe swung his big head around, irritable, still chewing. Kien glared and grabbed his halter. “Not another bite! Your morning meal is finished. Move. Now. Obey. ”
At least destroyers heeded obey though the command never improved their attitudes. The oversized brute grumbled as Kien led him toward the stable. To gain his cooperation, Kien said, “Let me make myself presentable, then we’ll visit General Rol. And Ela.”
Scythe’s big ears perked. “Ela,” Kien repeated, knowing she was this beast’s greatest weakness. Kien’s as well. “I’m sure she has six months’ worth of shrubs for you to devour.”
He continued to talk of Ela as he reluctantly chained Scythe to an iron ring embedded in stone within the stable yard. “Wait. I’ll return.” He’d won this round. With the destroyer at least.
His mother and the Infinite were different matters entirely.
Visions of ToronSea’s Ateans and their brutal divination rituals overtook his thoughts.
Kien hoped he would survive.

Seated on a woven mat near the ancient stone ruins of the Infinite’s temple, Ela Roeh, prophet of Parne, shifted in place and studied her scholars.
Five young ladies sat before her, decorously clad in pastel tunics and soft mantles. Wielding reed pens over their wax writing tablets, they bowed their fashionable curl-crowned heads in the early-autumn sunlight and wrote this morning’s lesson.
How troublesome to realize her students were all near her own age. In spirit, Ela felt older than eighteen. But surely not older than her dear eightyish chaperone. Ela slid a glance toward Tamri Het, a Siphran who’d followed Ela to the Tracelands after Siphra’s revolution seven months past. Seated nearby on a cushion, Tamri looked utterly harmless with her veiled silver hair-braids and embroidery. Who would ever believe this great-grandmother was a mob-inciting revolutionary who’d helped to topple Siphra’s previous king from his throne? Particularly now, as she hummed like a girl, her veils fluttering in the light breeze . . .
Hmm. Perhaps, in spirit, Ela was older than Tamri. Not that it mattered.
Old-spirited or not, all prophets of Parne died young. Ela chewed her lower lip. Surely her death would serve the Infinite’s purpose. But when?
Tzana, Ela’s fragile little sister, crept onto the mat, her small, prematurely aged face wrinkled both with concern and w