The Crimson Legion - Troy Denning, ebook
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The Crimson Legion
Book 2 of Prism Pentad
Troy Denning
PROLOGUE
Concentrate.
A white globe appeared in the black grotto that was the mind
of King Tithian I, casting a brilliant light over the warped spires
and gloomy depths of the cave's snarled terrain. Sable-winged
bats and ebon-feathered birds—dark thoughts given form by his
mind—fluttered away into murky nooks and alcoves, angrily
screeching and chirping.
"I've done it!" Tithian reported.
You've done nothing until you project it,
came the answer,
echoing inside the king's mind.
Tithian opened his eyes. Before him sat the disembodied
heads who were tutoring him in the elusive art of the Way. One
was sallow-skinned and sunken-featured, with cracked lips that
looked like shriveled leather. The other was grotesquely bloated,
with puffy cheeks and eyes swollen to narrow, dark slits. Both
wore their coarse hair in long topknots, and the bottom of their
necks had been sewn shut with thick black thread.
"Where?" Tithian asked.
Over the arena,
answered Sacha, the bloated head.
"Yes. It's time your subjects learned to fear you," agreed
Wyan, now speaking aloud.
Being careful to keep the ball glowing inside his mind, Tithian
looked toward the stadium. From his pedestal atop the roof of
the Golden Tower, he could see the largest part of the vast arena,
which lay between the tower and the crumbling bricks of the
previous king's ziggurat. Instead of gladiators, the immense
fighting pit now swarmed with craftsmen and free-farmers
bartering a wide variety of goods —thornberries, sweet lizard
meats, ceramic vessels, and knives and spoons of carved bone.
They had all covered their wares with tattered cloaks and
shabby blankets, for a hot driving wind was scouring the field
with sand and dust.
At the sight of the bazaar, the king could not help recalling
how the marketplace had come to exist. At the suggestion of his
boyhood friend Agis of Asticles, Tithian had written an edict
converting the stadium to a public market. When he had sent it
to the Council of Advisors for approval, Agis and his fellow
councilors had removed mention of the levy the king wished to
impose for selling goods in the stadium. Without advising
Tithian of what it had done, the council had then issued the edict
across the entire city. By the time the king had seen a copy of the
edict "he" had issued, the field had been filled with cheering
citizens.
Agitated by the memory, Tithian's dark thoughts took to their
wings and fluttered about his mind. He pinched his eyes closed,
desperately trying to brighten the light and force the errant
beasts back to their nests. It was a losing battle, for angry
thoughts teemed out of their black holes in countless numbers.
They swarmed the light, shrieking and screeching in frenzied
hatred. Tithian fought back, summoning as much energy as he
could. A stream of warmth rose from deep within his body and
flowed into the glowing ball.
A brilliant glow erupted from the king's eyelids and a
deafening clap of thunder blasted the Golden Tower, shaking it
from the foundations to the merlons. The boom reverberated
through Tithian's chest like a drum and set his ears to ringing.
"Did I do that?" he gasped, opening his eyes again.
Sacha rolled his eyes. "We're having a storm."
The king looked up and saw that the day had grown as dark
as his mood. A black haze of wind-borne silt hung over the city,
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