Six Of Foxes (Six Foxes)

Reader

...[.Sembila Clang]...

"What if I say no, Lunark?" Reader knows he's just acting. The time for protest is over. They had run down the sloping roof of the embassy to get to the Dushenka sector, Reyn was stunned, Tera darted lightly, while Lunark equalled their speed even though the path was limping and without a stick. However, Reader does not like this thief turned out to be very good at reading it. "What if I don't sacrifice the last shred of my integrity and honor?"

    "You'll want to, Reader. Silva is on his way to White Island at the moment. Are you really gonna leave him there?"

    "You're assuming a lot."

    "It feels like my acid is right."

    "That's the court over here, right?" tera said as they raced on the roof, occasionally looking at the neighboring beautiful grounds below, each one was built around a bubbling fountain and planted with ice-covered trees whose leaves whizzed. "I don't think this is a bad place to be sentenced to death."

    "Water is everywhere" Reyn said. "Does that fountain symbolize Syel?"

    "The eyes of water" chirped Ken. "The place where all sins are washed clean."

    "Or where they drowned us and forced us to confess" Reyn said.

    Tera grunts. "Reyn, your mind is dark right now. I'm afraid Geak gave you a bad influence."

    They used a mine that was knocked in half and a climbing hook to cross onto the roof of the Dushenka sector. Reyn had to hook himself up to the hardpoints. "Please laugh, Tera. Safety number one."  But Tera and Ken roamed the mines easily and very quickly, moving their hands one-on-one. The reader crossed over more carefully and, though not showing it, the young man disliked it because the mine creaked and shook his weight objections.

    Others pulled it over the rock on the roof of the Dushenka sector and, as Reader stood, sudden vertigo engulfed it. More than anywhere else in the world, this is what his home feels like. However, this house seemed to be turned back, his life seemed to be being stared at from the wrong angle. While narrowing his eyes to the darkness, Reader saw the ceiling window in the shape of an enormous pyramid. He was ambushed by a bad feeling, as if he were looking back at the glass he would see himself training in the training room, sitting behind a long table in the dining room.

    In the distance, he heard wolves barking and barking near the guard post, wondering where the master went that night. Will they recognize the Reader when he approaches with his hands outstretched? He wasn't even sure he knew himself. In the ice-covered north, Reader's choice seemed obvious. But now his mind is troubled by these thugs and thieves, because of the courage of Krista, the nimbleness of Tera, and because of Silva, always Silva. Reader could not deny the relief that rose in her heart when the girl came out of the furnace chimney, disheveled and huffled, frightened but still alive. When Reader and Reyn pull Silva from the chimney, he must force himself to let go of the youngster.

    No, he didn't want to look behind the ceiling window. He must never again be subject to his weakness, especially not tonight. Now is the time to move on.

    They arrived at the lip of the roof facing the ice trench. From here the surface of the trench appears solid, sparkling as bright as a mirror and illuminated by lights from the watchtowers on White Island. Though the water in the trench is always moving, only hidden by a thin layer of ice.

    Ken tied another piece of mine to the edge of the roof and got ready to go down into the ditch.

    "You know what to do" he told Tera and Reyn. "Ten clangs and not earlier."

    "When have I ever been earlier than scheduled?" ask Tera.

    Ken took a swing to jump and disappeared him to the side. Reader followed, her hands clutching the mine, her bare feet stepping against the wall. When he glanced up, he saw Reyn and Tera looking at him. However, the next time he looked up, they had already disappeared.

    Narrow-brimmed ice trench of slippery white rock. Ken perched there, clinging to the wall while looking at the trench with a frown.

    "How do I cross? I didn't see anything."

    "Because you don't deserve to cross."

    "I'm not far-sighted either. There's nothing here."

    The reader began to shuffle through the wall while fumbling against the pelvis-high stone wall. "When Udeshleg, Dushenka completed the inauguration" he said. "We went up the level of the would-be Dushenka into a rookie in ceremony at the sacred voda tree."

    "That's when the tree speaks to you."

    Reader resisted the urge to push Ken into the water. "That's when we hope to hear Syel's voice. But, that's a step down. First of all, we had to cross the ice trench undetected. If we value it worth it, Syel will show you the way."

    Actually the Dushenka elders passed down the secret to crossing over to the candidates they hoped to enter the order; such is the way to prune those who are weak or who simply do not fit in the group.if we have got friends, if we have proven ourselves, if we have proven ourselves, one of the brothers will invite us to pull over and tell us that on the eve of the inauguration, we must go to the edge of the ice ditch and lay hands on the wall of the Dushenka sector. In the middle-resistance, we will find wolf carvings that mark the location of other ice bridges - not as grand and curved as those that span the trenches of the embassy sector, but flat, flat, flat, and only a few feet wide. The bridge lies under a layer of frozen surface, invisible if we do not know where to look. Commander Dionysius himself told Reader how to find the secret bridge. Soldiers do not weep for death, but weep for treason. The reader frowned as he had remembered the words of his commander, he had opened up a trick to cross it undetected.

    The reader needs to walk through the wall twice before his fingers find wolf carving lines. He laid his hands there for an instant, feeling the tradition that connected him with the order of Dushenka, which was as old as the Royalemerald itself.

    "Here," he said.

    Ken inched his way up and narrowed his eyes to the trench. He leaned over and was immediately pulled back by Reader.

    Reader pointed to the watchtowers at the top of the wall surrounding White Island. "Later to be seen" he said. "Use this."

    He rubbed the wall so that his palm turned white. On the night of his inauguration, Reader affixed the same chalk powder to his clothes and hair. Disguised from the sight of the guards in the tower, he crossed the narrow titian to the island to meet his royal brethren.

    Now he and Ken are doing the same thing, even though Reader notices that Ken kept his gloves together first. The gloves must have been returned by Krista.

    The reader tracks to a secret bridge, then hears Ken hissing as the icy water from the moat envelops his feet.

    "Cool, Lunark."

    "Let's have time to swim. Let's move."

    Despite making fun of Ken, once they were halfway to the island, Reader's own feet were almost completely numb and he was well aware of the watchtower towering above the moat. Dushenka must have been through here. He had never heard of a Dushenka candidate being seen or shot on the bridge, but anything was possible.

    "This is only one part of udeshleg."

    "Yes, I know, when the tree tells you a secret handshake."

    "I pity you, Lunark. There is nothing sacred in your life."

    After a long silence, Ken said, "You're wrong."

    The outer wall of White Island loomed before them, covered in motifs in the form of waves. It took time to find the mountainous scales that hid the gates. Not long before, Dushenka must have gathered in the recesses of the wall over here to greet their new brethren at the edge of the moat, but the place was now empty, its barred iron fence chained up. Ken watched the lock briefly and, for a moment, they were already on a narrow path that would lead them to the park behind the barracks of the royal guard.

    "Have you been good at tweaking keys since the beginning?"

    "No."

    "How do you learn?"

    "Just like everyone. By collecting it."

    "If magic tricks?"

    Ken grunting. "So you don't think I'm a demon anymore?"

    "I know you're a demon, but your tricks are human."

    "Some people look at magic tricks and say, 'Impossible' They clap, hand over the money, and forget about it ten minutes later. Others ask how to do the trick. They went home, got into bed, flipped through the bed while poring over how. After a good night's sleep, they forgot about it. There are also people who stay up all night, review the trick many times, look for gaps in their perception, level at the illusion that will explain how the story is until their eyes are fooled; people like them cannot rest until they master the little tricks themselves. I belong to that group."

    "You're fond of gimmicks."

    "I love puzzles. A mere ruse is my mother tongue."

    "Garden," Reader said as she pointed at the hedge in front. "We can walk all the way to the hall."

    just as they were about to get off the trail, two guards circled the corner - both in Dushenka's silver-black uniform, both carrying rifles.

    "Perjenger!" one of them screamed in surprise. Detainees. "Sten!"

    Without thinking, Reader said, "Vodle, Syel commenden!" Subject, by the will of Syel. Those were the words of officer Dushenka and Reader conveyed with all the decisiveness he was able to muster.

    The two soldiers exchanged a puzzled look. A moment of doubt is enough. Reader snatched the first soldier's rifle and headed his head tightly. Fall the Dushenka.

    Ken beat the other soldier down, the Dushenka kept holding his rifle, but Ken slipped behind him and clamped the soldier's neck with his forearm, press until the soldier closes his eyes, then loses consciousness as it appears from his bowed head.

    Ken rolled the soldier's body from his body and immediately stood up.

    Reader felt like a slap when she suddenly became aware of their situation. Ken didn't pick up a gun. Reader held a firearm in his hand, while Ken Lunark was unarmed. They stood looming before the two Dushenkas lying unconscious, men who should have been Reader's brothers. I can shoot him, Reader thought. To hurt Silva and the others with one act only. The reader again gets a strange feeling, as if he is looking at his life from a wrong perspective. He was in prison uniform, becoming an intruder in what he called home. Who am I now?

    Reader looked at Ken Lunark, a young man whose lifetime was of his own interest. Even so, Ken was a survivor and, arguably, a soldier as well. He honors his deal with Reader. Before this, he could have decided that Reader was useless - once the Bearchen helped them draw the floor plan, once they got out of the temporary holding cell, once Reader revealed the bridge's secrets. Reader doesn't know who he is now, but he won't shoot someone unarmed. He hasn't gotten that far.

    Reader dropped the rifle.

    A faint smile loomed on Ken's lips. "I'm not sure what you're gonna do until this happens."

    "I'm the same, too" Reader admitted. Ken raised an eyebrow and the truth suddenly hit Reader. "That was a test. You deliberately didn't pick up a rifle."

    "I need to see if you're really on our side. We're all."

    "How do you know I won't shoot?"

    "Because you're virtuous, Reader. I can smell it."

    "You're nuts."

    "Are you the secret to gambling, Van?" Ken stuck his healthy foot into the hilt of a fallen soldier's rifle. The weapon is pointing upwards. Within the span of one breath, Ken had already held the weapon and pointed it at Reader. Ken was never in a vulnerable position. "Main cheated. Well, now let's clean up and put on that uniform. We have to attend the party."

    "One day, you'll run out of tricks, Chotgor."

    "Mending you wish it wasn't today."

    Let's see it later tonight, Reader thought as she leaned over to disarm the soldier's uniform. Ruse is not my mother tongue, but who knows I can learn it.