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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: This is the first tale of the Nedao people, told from the perspective of Nisana, and AEldra of the cat kin. The story is left to her, as one of the few witnesses of the trials of the brave young queen Ylia, the Lady of Nedao. As she trains Ylia in the arts of her powers, Nisana is the only mind to have full access to all of Ylia feelings and emotions as she is thrown into exile from the city of the King and subjected to dark magics and a dangerous journey through unfriendly lands.

eBook Publisher: e-reads, Published: 1987
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2001

This eBook is part of the following series:

• Ru Emerson's Nedao Series

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [1.8 MB], eReader (PDB) [377 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [381 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [335 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [323 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [341 KB], hiebook (KML) [850 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [416 KB], iSilo (PDB) [317 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [392 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [439 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [500 KB]
Words: 115673
Reading time: 330-462 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

The heights had blown clear of snow the past two nights; the warm winds, the AEdrith, were early, all the more welcome for it. Snow still lay in waist-deep greyed drifts in the vales and canyons, but even this was beginning to melt at the edges, forming little dripping caves. Water plopped in huge drops from winter-bent fir. The sound carried loud across the deep, bowl-shaped valley.

The tower stood as it had for hundreds of years, a blackened, torn hulk. Openings gaped where thick, opaque glass had shattered and still lay in multicolored shards beneath the snow, or where stone had been torn down, bronze and iron sills and doorframes twisted by the fury of long-burned-out fires.

It stood as it had, save for one thing: it was occupied.

Had any of the few hunters within the Foessa chosen to approach from the east, and had he survived long enough to reach the tower this particular night, he would have seen a clearing, a huddle of small, low barracks along the edge of the trees; across from them, the grand stair, the great balcony as large as many a lord's banquet hall--and, beyond the bank of windows letting onto that balcony, light.

Not the honest light of torch and lantern, no. A red, murky light, the color of a half-healed wound, the color of dried blood.

A hall ran the length of the balcony. The vaulted ceiling vanished in gloom; a polished, tile floor caught light from the smoldering firepit and reflected a sudden red on pale walls. A dais, two grand canopied chairs were barely to be seen against the windows.

Shadows scurried across the room, not-reflections of things fluttering high above, things creeping about the edge of the firepit. A horror moved with them. Fear crawled across the floor, slid from the embers and shivered into the corners.

Two other shadows flickered against the far wall but did not move beyond the motion of the low-burning fire. Man and woman: human-shaped, at least, among the horrors that surrounded them. To these, the two paid no heed. He of the two turned to face the windows and spoke.

"It is done; Chezad has spoken. Even now the old shaman passes the war god's message to Kanatan. The Tehlatt will retake the Plain within days. Nedao will fall; after that, by our hand, Yls. And Nar."

"But my Lord--if the Lammior's power still does not rise to your bidding--"

"Oh, that." He laid an arm across the woman's shoulders, drew her to him. "He will answer me, eventually." Calm certainty. "In the meantime, I have drawn sufficient knowledge from this place to start down the path I have chosen--"

"We have chosen, my Lord," she reminded him. He nodded.

"We. They will see, all of them. Fools, all."

"All of them." Her voice was no less eager than his. "My father--she who would have been yours--"

"Ah." He laughed, a chill sound that sent the shadows quivering against the far walls and dampened the embers to an even duller red. "Does it bother you so much, my sweet? That Scythia was the one I chose first?"

"Why should it?" The profile, seen against the half-moon, was delicate: pale hair, near silver in the light, was piled in jewel-touched curls. "She matters to no one, she is already dead, though she does not know it yet. And I have what she was stupid enough to spurn."

"Dead." He laughed again. "She, the barbarian who stole her from me, their half-breed brat. All. An excellent beginning point, and a good test." He drew the woman with him to the great double doors set in the far wall. One hand on the latch, he turned, spoke a single word. The firepit flared, sullen red flame swirled and towered toward the ceiling, disturbing a number of huge batlike darkness.

The story is mine to lay before you, by right and by knowledge: alone of those who know the tale, I, Nisana, was present from its Nedaoan beginnings to their end. More: I was party before Nedao's involvement, and the whole of the histories are known only to me of all those who walk this great valley. Though we of AEldra blood who wear cat's form are brief of speech, still I take the telling willingly upon myself, that you may know the truth of it.