The Drowning City - Amanda Downum [0]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Amanda Downum
Excerpt from The Bone Palace copyright © 2009 by Amanda Downum All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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First eBook Edition: September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-07828-3
Contents
Copyright
This was no accident.
Part I: Waiting for the Rain
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part II: Downpour
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part III: Deep Water
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Extras
Meet the Author
Interview
The Bone Palace
This was no accident.
Isyllt wrapped a concealment around her, and a ward against the flames, and crossed the street.
Her ring blazed as she entered the shop, pushing back the crackling heat—no survivors inside. Flames consumed the doors and wall hangings, rushed over the ceiling to devour the rafters. Lamps melted on shelves, brass and silver charring wood as they dripped to the floor. Witchlight flickered around her in an opalescent web, holding guttering flames at bay. But it wouldn’t keep the ceiling from crushing her when it came down.
The smell of charred flesh and hot metal seared her nose, and something else. The air was heavy with intent, with sacrifice. The magic that turned the shop into an inferno had been dearly paid for.
A spell so powerful must have left a trace. She nearly stepped in a puddle of brown-burnt blood, nudged a body aside with her toe. The man’s eyes melted down his charred cheeks and Isyllt frowned; intact, he might have shared his dying vision with her. Not that she had time to scry the dead.
BY AMANDA DOWNUM
The Necromancer Chronicles
The Drowning City
For New Orleans
Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise.
—Emily Dickinson
Hope lies in the smoldering rubble of empires.
—Rage Against the Machine
(“Calm Like a Bomb”)
Part I
Waiting for the Rain
1229 Sal Emperaturi
CHAPTER 1
Symir. The Drowning City.
An exile, perhaps, but at least it was an interesting one.
Isyllt’s gloved hands tightened on the railing as the Black Mariah cleared the last of the Dragon Stones and turned toward the docks, dark estuarine water slopping against her hull. Fishing boats dotted Ka Liang Bay, glass buoys flashing in the sun. Cormorants dove around them, scattering ripples as they snatched fish from hooks and nets.
The west wind died, broken on the Dragons’ sharp peaks, and the jungle’s hot breath wafted from the shore. Rank with brine and bilge, sewers draining into the sea, but under the port-reek the air smelled of spices and the green tang of Sivahra’s forests rising beyond the marshy delta of the Mir. Mountains flanked the capital city Symir, uneven green sentinels on either side of the river. So unlike the harsh and rocky shores of Selafai they had left behind two and a half decads ago.
Only twenty-five days at sea—a short voyage, though it didn’t feel that way to Isyllt. The ship had made good time, laden only with olive oil and wheat flour from the north.
And northern spies. But those weren’t recorded on the cargo manifest.
Isyllt shook her head, collected herself. This might be an exile, but it was a working one. She had a revolution to foment, a country