Overview
A duke dies and his evil brother usurps his throne. Who do you call? In master world builder Ru Emerson’s spellbinding Night‑Threads fantasy series, the rightful heir summons a warrior, a shape‑shifter, and a sorceress from Earth. But not just anywhere on Earth—California! And if you do not think this trio has what it takes to harness the power of Night‑Threads, you do not know your Marina Del Rey from your Santa Rosa. The problem is, they are afraid to use their powers. These three have been chosen to fight in a dangerous battle of unbelievable magic—a magic they must believe in . . . or die.
Do not miss the entire Night‑Threads series: The Calling of the Three, The Two in Hiding, One Land, One Duke, The Craft of Light, The Art of the Sword, and The Science of Power.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497604063 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2014 |
| Series: | Night-Threads , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 232 |
| Sales rank: | 488,180 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
When not writing, she runs, works out at the gym (weights and cardio), gardens, and tries to keep the bird feeders filled and the deer out.
She has written and sold twenty-four novels, including the popular six-volume Night Threads series and the first three tie-in novels based on the hit TV series Xena: Warrior Princess.
Ru Emerson was raised in Butte, Montana, in the 1950s, which really does explain a lot. Now she lives in rural western Oregon on five secluded acres with Doug, a.k.a. the Phantom Husband of six years (it was Leap Year; the girl gets to ask), three cats, a dog, a lot of raccoons, and a skunk (all of whom she feeds) and at least two hundred wild birds, including quail and long-eared owls, and more than twenty hummingbirds. She has about an acre of gardens.
When not writing, she runs, works out at the gym (weights and cardio), gardens, and tries to keep the bird feeders filled and the deer out.
She has written and sold twenty-four novels, including the popular six-volume Night Threads series and the first three tie-in novels based on the hit TV series Xena: Warrior Princess.
Read an Excerpt
The Calling of the Three
Night-Threads: Book One
By Ru Emerson
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1990 Ru EmersonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-0406-3
CHAPTER 1
SIN-DUCHESS Lialla had eaten bread spread with a sweetened apple mash in the small courtyard, rather than face a midday meal at the family table. It wasn't enough food and she would be hungry again by late afternoon, but that was small price to pay for avoiding her uncle and the general unpleasantness between him and her mother, the undercurrents to conversation. Not that hiding had helped this particular afternoon, not entirely. She pulled the black scarf higher on the back of her neck, shivered as she left the sunny little garden and hurried along the shadowed walkway. It ran like a hall between the public and private portions of Duke's Fort; chill wind flowed its length winter and summer.
She turned left at the third opening, crossed a darkened and empty room. A narrow staircase built into the thick stone wall, seldom used except by herself and her mother's woman—the Night-Thread Wielder Merrida—was illuminated by a finger of daylight from somewhere high above. She climbed carefully; the steps did not have a uniform rise and they were all just enough too tall that it was impossible to adjust to them. They passed by the second floor without egress and came out in the middle of an equally small room on the third and uppermost floor of the family apartments.
There were no windows in this chamber, no lamps. A small fire was kept burning in the grate near the door, giving just enough illumination for the young woman to find her way across. Merrida's doing, that fire. A servant of her own saw to it, saw that it was never allowed to die out entirely. Merrida's books—ancient clay tablets, some of them, or rolled hide, pulped reed or wood—were hidden in this room, hidden behind a maze of Thread that kept the chamber beneath Jadek's notice. He passed it at least once a day, on his way from his and Lizelle's apartments to the lower halls. He hadn't paid it the least heed in years.
Lialla scrubbed the back of her hand across her lips. The apples had been mealy-soft and too sweet before the cooks mashed and honeyed them; the mess on her bread had left her mouth feeling coated, her lips and fingers sticky even though she'd dipped them in the fountain before coming away.
Her palms were damp, but that had nothing to do with the food. Jadek had sent her a summons, sending one of his men to her small, sunny sanctum. One of his grubby, hulking men, all creaking smelly leather and cold steel blades. He'd watched her with black, intent eyes; his fingers had actually tried to touch hers when she took the folded paper from him. She wouldn't go back to that patio again, not soon—not alone. Not with that to remember it by.
The message itself was courteously phrased, but an order all the same: "I would speak with you on the subject of your future, Daughter. If it is not inconvenient, your mother and I will be in my accounting room at third hour." Not inconvenient, Lialla thought as she slipped past the heavy door and hurried down the hall to her small suite—two rooms and a privy. And if I said it was, what would he do then? She wasn't certain she wanted the answer to that question. Jadek had never actually used force against her. But his voice could flay her; he knew every least insecurity and played upon it. She'd cringed under his voice for years. And violence—she knew he was capable of it; he'd let her see how capable more than once, against servants, or commons. People who couldn't hit back. People like herself.
It didn't matter, though, that last. His voice would be enough. If she didn't come, she wouldn't hear the end of it for days.
The halls were empty at this hour. Servants would be eating or airing curtains and bedding on this first warm day in so many; they'd welcome the opportunity to stay outdoors as long as possible. Lizelle seldom left her private rooms unless Jadek required her presence at a formal dinner or at council. Merrida often slept at this hour. And Aletto—gods. Lialla slipped into her rooms and pressed the door shut behind her. Aletto was nearly as much a recluse of late as their mother.
Perhaps more, and with more cause. Three years past the time to claim his rights! Jadek gave such smooth excuses to postpone the ceremony, Aletto couldn't counter him, and Lialla knew how that angered and frustrated him. Besides, his limp was more pronounced during the damp spring months; with nothing else to occupy his time, he had begun hiding behind his door, drinking until both the physical pain and the emotional were temporarily dulled.
Lialla slid the bar across her door from habit. It had been there as long as she could remember; she'd only begun to use it the past year or so. Jadek's armsmen, some of them, walked the halls of the family apartments. And Jadek himself—now and again he stopped on his way to Lizelle, to tap on her door. To talk, he said, or to ask a question ... She didn't think anything certain; she didn't let herself go so far as that. She set the bar in place whenever she was in her rooms.
It was warmer here. Sun pooled on the floor by her bed, and with the windows closed the room was rather stuffy. But when she pushed one ajar, a chill breeze blew across her face and the backs of her hands; she shivered, and shut it again.
It was a nice room, all light wood and whitewash, low-ceilinged enough to be easily warmed in winter. The glass was truly ancient, thick and bubbled in places; it gave her a headache to look out for long across the main courtyard, the horsebarns, the outer curtain of the fort. There was little to see out there, anyway; a few of Jadek's men on the walls of the curtain, one or two in the yard and now and again a horse.
Horse. She sighed. She wasn't permitted to ride in winter or bad weather. Even now that it had turned nice, Jadek hadn't issued new orders. If he was in a decent mood, perhaps she'd ask him this afternoon. Winter and its close confinement left her cross; inaction made her feel loggy, bloated and soft.
Her bedding was faded with age, the carpets frayed and patched. Jadek would doubtless have given her better if she'd asked. She didn't care enough to bother. Her clothing was in no better shape, but she cared even less for her appearance. There had been no suitors in three years, none she'd accept before that. Men like her father were rare, men like Jadek all too common, from what she'd seen. She wouldn't grow old early like her mother, a faint look of drawn suffering pinching her cheeks, her eyes all wary, sidelong looks. She had more important things to do with her life.
Jadek had made no objection at all to her summary rejection of applicants for her hand; Lialla suspected he would rather keep her dowry to himself. But she couldn't leave: She was all Aletto had to keep him from drinking himself to death, even though her influence over him was almost nonexistent nowadays. It was still greater than Lizelle's. Her mother hardly bothered any more.
But that was another thing: Lizelle needed her, too. She couldn't just abandon her mother. Lizelle had Merrida, of course: Merrida had been with her forever.
And that, of course, was a thing at least as important as any other: Merrida. Merrida had taught Lizelle to Wield, and Lialla suspected it was Night-Thread magic that kept Jadek sonless. She herself was a black-sashed initiate, Merrida's pupil. One day she'd be a full-fledged Wielder, and then—oh, then! Jadek would learn, he'd pay for everything, and she'd—
She turned that thought off. Merrida had warned her never to plan such things in advance. "Vengeance is better when you don't try to work it out too long beforehand—for the satisfaction as much as for the spell. But it's foolish to let such thoughts fill you: They interfere with other things, and Jadek may have his own ways of knowing them. Better, isn't it, to catch him unaware?"
"As if he doesn't know how deeply I loathe him," Lialla mumbled bitterly. She turned her back on the sun and dug into the chest where her clothes were stored.
An initiate Wielder traditionally wore plain black. Lialla had two changes of such blacks, the baggy trous worn over knee-length leggins and bound at the ankle with thin, charcoal gray cord only slightly paler than the rusty and faded black. A thin, body-hugging, sleeved and high-necked shirt of tight, smooth weave tucked into the trous; a sleeveless, shapeless overshirt was caught at the hips with a wide sash. Her sash was black, Merrida's pale lemon yellow. Her mother's, kept in Merrida's firelit room with the blacks she hadn't worn since her husband's death, was deep orange. There were two ranks above Merrida's, but according to the old woman, no one in all Rhadaz had wrapped his blacks or her blacks in either silver or white since Hell-Light was confined to pools and the Triads unmade or driven into hiding.
It was a practical garb for riding, walking, some sort of strenuous activity, or long hours in the dark and chill of the night, manipulating Threads. It was not designed to be attractive, bundling the body into shapelessness as it did, and black did not suit Lialla. It muffled the red in her dark brown hair and made her look sallow, too thin, and alarmingly young. Lialla was unaware of that, and would not have cared if she knew. She tucked Jadek's message in her sash, shoved her feet into short black boots, and went down to see what Jadek wanted.
ALETTO'S door was closed; a small stack of used dishes sat beside it, next to a bowl of congealing soup. Small flies hovered in a cloud over a dish of sliced fruit. Lialla closed her eyes briefly, hesitated, brought her fist up. After a moment, she let it fall to her side, stepped back and went on down the hall.
THE man who opened the door to her was middle-aged and broad-shouldered. Grizzled brown hair ringed a sunburned and freckled pate. He was unfamiliar to her; his livery was similar to that worn by Jadek's personal servants, vaguely unsettling. He stepped aside, let her in, pulled the door to behind her and remained beside it. Lialla cast him another glance, sidelong from under her lashes. A red silhouette of a hunting dog on the sleeve. Carolan. Carolan was at Duke's Fort.
She kept her face utterly still as she stepped into the spacious room that had been her father's library, and that Jadek called his accounting room. She saw her mother first, a too-slender figure seated near tall, mullioned windows that cast bars of shadow across her pale blue skirts. Behind her mother's chair, Merrida stood, so still she might have been part of the fabric of curtains or the chair; she wore black, but not Wielder black. Merrida's eyes held hers briefly; her fingers shifted along the side of the chair, index fingers overlapping for the least instant, then slipping back out of sight. Lizelle's hands were neatly folded in her lap, thumbs joined.
Caution. Danger. They were warning her. Lialla knew that much already, though. One cause for it sat at the long table, polished wood stretching to either side of him. Jadek had scarcely aged at all in the years he'd held Duke's Fort: Even with full sun on his face, there were no lines save faint ones around his eyes; his dark hair was as thick as ever, and only a few pale hairs marred it. He was clean-shaven, though, and had been since his mustache began coming in a mix of red and silver. His smile was still wide, and he had all his teeth. The smile went no higher than his teeth; his eyes were very pale blue, ringed with darker blue, and as chilly as a hunting bird's. Lialla inclined her head in a dutiful child's greeting, then waited for him to speak first.
She would not let herself look at the man who stood behind Jadek's chair: Carolan, Jadek's disgusting, horrible cousin, was smiling the way he no doubt had practiced before a mirror, and trying to catch her eye.
"Daughter, thank you for coming." Jadek's prepared little speech brought her eyes up to his face. He was going to be particularly slow at coming to his point this afternoon, she could tell already. And the point was already dreadfully clear, with Carolan in his best and least soiled garb—pale lavender velvet, an ocean of purple edged in gold thread; a broad, sequined sash crossed one shoulder and came back across his enormous belly. Carolan, whose exploits among the paid women of Sikkre's markets had even reached her carefully sheltered ears.
It took what seemed hours: Lialla managed somehow not to fidget when Jadek spoke of her age, her station, her rank. She bit the corners of her mouth not to either interrupt or shout with laughter when Jadek began to list Carolan's virtues—a long list of very invented virtues. Her uncle's color was becoming high; try to speak now and he'd lose his temper. As she now stood, she couldn't see her mother without turning her head, but she could almost touch Lizelle's tension.
But Jadek was finishing up his speech. "And so, my cousin Carolan has come to me, to ask your hand. What say you, daughter?"
Lialla drew a deep breath, cast a swift glance at the smirking creature behind the chair. "I thank him for the honor. But I must decline it." Carolan stirred and would have spoken; Jadek held up a hand.
"It's an honorable offer, Lialla," he said reasonably. "You are at an age where you will not receive many more of them."
"I do not wish to marry. My thanks for your concern and for your cousin's request, but no." Silence. She drew another deep breath and used it to steady her voice. "It is my right."
Jadek leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "Not if the succession is in question. And it may be. Your mother and I have no children of my blood—"
"But Aletto—!" The words were out, her voice sounding high and frightened. She bit her lip, swallowed the rest. Jadek gazed at her with that lack of expression that knotted her stomach. His eyes had gone even colder.
"Aletto has not—has not been well for some time, as you know. And his infirmity may well preclude him from the succession."
"But he's not really ill, you know that! Not any more! He's only—"
"Are you contradicting me, Lialla?" Silence. Then Jadek slammed both palms on the table with a crack that echoed. Lialla flinched; Jadek's voice was suddenly a bellow, hammering into her. "How dare you interrupt me? How dare you gainsay me? When did your brother last leave his rooms?"
Aletto—he'd put Aletto's rights aside entirely! Fear vanished; Lialla's temper flared. "I always knew you'd steal his birthright! You couldn't wait to take Mother after Father died, couldn't wait to take Duke's Fort for your own, and you won't give it up now, will you?"
Jadek caught hold of her sleeve and yanked her across the table, off her feet; his free hand cracked across her face. The room blurred, and she blinked tears aside furiously. "Aletto is a drunk and a cripple," Jadek said flatly. "Is that what you want me to say? Should I let your father's Duchy—my brother's birthright, you wretched girl!—fall to ruin at the hands of an incompetent, limping, winebibber?" Because you made him a drunk, she thought defiantly, but the words wouldn't come. Her knees were trembling so much that he must have felt the tremor through the hand that gripped her elbow. "Well, Lialla?" Jadek's voice rang through her; he brought his hand up again and she shrank away from him. He lowered it, gazed at her in silence for some moments, then let go of her arm and resumed his seat.
"You shouldn't anger me like that, Lialla. It grieves me to hurt you." She kept her eyes on the floor before her feet and tried to keep tears behind her eyelids. He'd never hit her before; and to strike her in front of her mother, her tutor—in front of Carolan. "I know your intentions and your desires, Lialla." Jadek offered her a smile; his eyes were still cold. Lialla glanced at him, away again. "These aren't the best of times for them. And it's not natural, what you want. Magic," he said, and laughed a little. "It's not safe, dabbling in the unknown. Something terrible might happen to you. Besides, rumor has it the Emperor may again restrict such things, once his Festival is past, and he has time to devote to the matter." Not Night-Thread magic, Lialla thought dully.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Calling of the Three by Ru Emerson. Copyright © 1990 Ru Emerson. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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