C.S. Friedman - Wings of Wrath: Book Two of the Magister Trilogy

Scanned by D ragon A she (a.k.a. Merithyn) Basic proofing by D ragon A she

Current e-book version: 1.0
-------------------------------------------If you like the book...go BUY it!!!! Support the Author!!!

BY CELIA FRIEDMAN

The Coldfire Trilogy Black Sun Rising When True Night Falls Crown of Shadows

The Magister Trilogy Feast of Souls Wings of Wrath

2
MAGISTER
TRILOGY

ORBIT
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Orbit
This paperback edition published in 2009 by Orbit
Copyright 2009 by C. S. Friedman
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than
those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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, without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published and
without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-84149-533-0
Typeset in Adobe Caslon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham ME5 8TD
Papers used by Orbit are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests and certified in accordance with the rules of the Forest Stewardship Council. Mixed Sources
Product group from well-managed forests and other controlled sources www.fsc.org Cert no. SGS-C0C-QQ4Q81 1996 Forest Stewardship Council Orbit
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
An Hachette UK Company www.hachette.co.uk

Dedication
For Betsy Wollheim Amazing editor Priceless muse Beloved friend

Acknowledgements
BY FAR, the best part of researching any book is getting to sit down with experts in various fields and hear them talk about the stuff they love. Special thanks for this volume go to John Woodson, whose love of traditional climbing was as infectious as his knowledge was impressive.
Thanks also to my reading team, who really worked their butts off on this one. That's Carl Cipra, Kim Dobson, Paul Hoeffer, Zsusy Sanford, and David Walddon. Couldn't have done it without you guys! Also Fonda Nichols, Steve Rapaport, and Beth Tobin for additional reading support.
Special thanks to Joshua Starr for all his help, especially with the map.
Last but not least, thanks to all the wonderful people at Sylvan for helping to keep me sane while I finished this manuscript... Emily Habermeyer and Elise Nicely for being the best bosses ever, and all my students (especially the writing students!) for filling my heart with joy and pride. You guys work so hard that it inspires me to do the same. Keep it up!

THE GODS were coming. The boy pressed himself down against the hot ground, clinging to the mountain with blackened hands. Broken bits of lava and clumps of ash came loose beneath his fingertips, searing his skin like hot coals, but he hardly noticed. His attention was fixed upon the view overhead, in particular those few places where the thick clouds parted and the sky itself was visible.
They were coming soon. They must be.
They would not refuse the offering.
Beneath his vantage point, in the vast gray bowl of the caldera, a half dozen girls whimpered in pain and terror. They were small things, his age or younger, and bright red blood streamed from cuts on the backs of their legs. The priests had decreed they should be hamstrung before being cast into the caldera, lest they do what the last group of sacrifices had done: flee to the lava pit at its far end to throw themselves in, rather than embrace their destiny. The gods were not pleased when the offerings died too quickly. And when the gods were not pleased the Sleep came, and children died, and crops stood untouched in the fields until they rotted for lack of strong men to harvest them.
The girls were terrified, of course, and the boy winced as one of them
screamed, unable to see which one it was, trying not to wonder about it. The Land of the Sun was a small place and he knew the name of everyone in it... but once a girl was chosen to be sacrificed she gave up her former name and identity and became only Tawa, a handmaiden ofthe gods. It was too terrifying to think of them as anything else now, to remember that the girls who had once run with him, jested with him, and played "show me yours and I will show you mine" in the shadow of the great mountain, were set out like lambs for the slaughter, awaiting the gods who would devour them.
Food. The priests never called them that, but that was what they were. Everyone in the Land of the Sun knew it, though no one ever said it aloud. A man could offer up his daughter to be a bride of the gods and feel there was honor in the act, but once he admitted that she was little more than a herd animal being staked out for slaughter, that honor died a cold and miserable death. The flowers woven into the girls' hair ceased to be bridal circlets, no longer crowns of communion but simply a macabre garnish; their cries were no longer the songs of welcome a virgin bride might offer to a majestic and powerful bridegroom, but simply squeals of primitive, overbearing terror.
Little wonder none of the villagers ever stayed behind to see if the sacrifice was accepted, the boy thought. The illusion of sanctity might not survive such close inspection. Suddenly the clouds overhead seemed to stir. The boy drew his breath in quickly, which made the sulfurous smoke burn his nostrils and set him coughing. He shut his eyes tightly as his chest spasmed, tears streaming down his soot-blackened cheeks as he struggled to keep silent, lest the gods who were surely approaching turn their attention to him before he was ready. And perhaps mistake him for a sacrifice.
Then the fit passed, and the last cough was swallowed, and he opened his eyes again. And they were there.
They clean wereso clean!cool, clear colors against a blazing sky, ice against fire. Their wings were like the finely veined wings of insects, but broad beyond measure, and so strong that every stroke raised whirlwinds of dust and ash from the ground beneath. Their bodies glistened like the ocean at moonrise, with sparks of blue and purple and colors (hat the boy did not even know the names of playing across their skin. Their wings were sheets of blue sea ice that cooled the smoky wind with every stroke, and they slid through the filthy sulfurous air like seals through water, poisonous clouds frothing in their wake.
The priests taught that any man who looked upon the gods directly would perish. The boy stared at them despite that warning, naked in his hunger to witness the magnitude of their power, to understand it, to possess it.
One by one the vast creatures dropped out of the clouds, banking low beneath the hot smoke as they glided over the caldera. The girls had stopped screaming now. They still trembled in fear, and one moaned softly in pain as the broad wings beat the smoky air into whirls and eddies all about her, but otherwise they were eerily still, transfixed by the sight of their winged bridegrooms. Even from where the boy crouched he could feel the sheer power of the gods' presence, and it made his blood run cold with fear ... yet at the same time it stirred his fleshstrangely, uncomfortablyas if he were watching those same girls bathe naked in a hot spring. Unable to move, he watched in silence as the creatures swooped low over the girls, one after the other. The young brides appeared to have forgotten their pain now, and lay back to the last one upon the hot earth, arms reaching out to welcome the creatures as one might welcome a lover. It was a grotesque scene to be sure, but also fascinating, and he could not look away from it.

Next page