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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: A princess and a stableboy? It sounds like the worst sort of hackneyed formula romance. Think again, for "A Man of His Word" may well be the most original fantasy you ever read. The magic is unique and applied in unexpected ways, some of which the late Lester del Rey admitted he had not met in fifty years as writer and editor. The world itself is unique--there are no humans in Pandemia, only imps, elves, gnomes, jotnar, and many more, all of whom you will recognize as "human". Hunted now by the fearsome warlock wardens who rule the world, Inos is convinced that Rap is dead. But Rap is not, and the tide may be about to turn...

eBook Publisher: e-reads, Published: 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2005

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Dave Duncan's Man of His Word Series

60 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [2.1 MB], eReader (PDB) [408 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [421 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [372 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [352 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [393 KB], hiebook (KML) [956 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [455 KB], iSilo (PDB) [347 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [431 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [483 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [544 KB]
Words: 123355
Reading time: 352-493 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

In all the Impire, there was no more prosperous province than the island of Kith. Ever since its conquest in the expansive days of the Xth Dynasty, it had been the imps' main bastion in the Summer Seas.

It had rich mines, fertile farmland, and a substantial shipping industry. Once in a while a typhoon would do some damage, or dragons might lay waste along the northeast shore, but neither had troubled the western coast in centuries, and there the city of Finrain was the largest and richest on the island, as well as the greatest port.

Ports needed sailors. The best sailors were jotnar. Imps had good reason to be jumpy when there were jotnar around, and they firmly encouraged the sailors who manned Finrain's shipping to make their homes at Durthing, a couple of hours to the south--close enough to be handy, but distant enough that their violent impulses could do no damage to Finrain itself, nor its citizens.

Durthing was home also to a few trolls, most of them descendants of slaves imported from the Mosweeps, because the aboriginal population had pretty much died out after the Impire came. There were also some mixed bloods, and of course gnomes to handle the sanitary arrangements. There were even a few imps, but any imp who chose to live in a jotunnish settlement must have very good reasons, of the sort that were better not discussed.

Lately, a young sailor of mixed faun-jotunn ancestry had taken up residence. Although he had been a thrall purchased at enormous expense by Gathmor, the new master of Stormdancer, he had subsequently been given his freedom. Within limits. His shipmates did not exactly take turns at keeping an eye on him, but ... Well, he was a good kid and never lacked for company. He had shown no interest in departing, anyway, but he was much too valuable to be allowed the opportunity. Moreover, there was only one land road out of Durthing, and it ran by a post of the Imperial army. Imps were notoriously nosy.

Its fondest resident could not have called Durthing a town, and barely even a village, for its huts and hovels were scattered at random around the sides of a shallow, bowl-shaped hollow. The only break in the bowl's symmetry was a notch where the sea had broken through, back before the oldest Gods. With clear, calm water and smooth sand for beaching, the near-circular bay was one of the finest harbors in all of Pandemia. Three little streams watered the slopes, the sea teemed with fish, and the climate was perfect. Usually a dozen ships lay anchored there, or pulled up on the beach, and most often two or three more were under construction.

There was no formal land law in Durthing, for there was no formal law at all. The sea was a demanding mistress and whenever she stole a lover from his family, his home was soon abandoned to weeds and swallowed up by scrubby woodland.

A woman bereft must find herself another protector at once, and her children likely died soon anyway. Even among jotnar, few men would actually kill a child in cold blood, but even fewer would care overmuch for brats spawned by a predecessor. The work was done by neglect and indifference, or in mindless drunken rages. A widow who did not find another guardian was soon driven out by the other women and vanished into the nightmare slums of Finrain.

But in every evil there was some good, as the priests said, and housing was thus no problem for a newcomer. He might pick a pleasant spot not too far from one of the streams and build the home of his dreams, or he could just move into one of the empties. The selection was wide: impish wooden shacks, or low, dark sod hovels of the Nordland type favored by jotnar, or the rambling piles of masonry constructed by trolls. There were also some abandoned gnome burrows, but even the rats shunned those.

The faun had selected an ancient log cabin off by itself, and labored to make it shipshape while he settled down to life as a sailor. After every voyage he added more improvements. The months slipped by imperceptibly in that silken halcyon climate, and spring had become summer already.