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HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2000
Copyright © Raymond E. Feist
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Raymond E. Feist asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008311278
Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780007352449
Version: 2018-11-13
For Bob Ezrin,
who else?
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue: Attack
Chapter One: Arrival
Chapter Two: Schemes
Chapter Three: Vow
Chapter Four: Secrets
Chapter Five: Monsters
Chapter Six: Intrigues
Chapter Seven: Conspiracy
Chapter Eight: Kendaric
Chapter Nine: Diversion
Chapter Ten: Goblins
Chapter Eleven: Haldon Head
Chapter Twelve: Dark Magic
Chapter Thirteen: Misdirection
Chapter Fourteen: Vampire
Chapter Fifteen: Two Fangs
Chapter Sixteen: Temple
Chapter Seventeen: Black Pearl
Chapter Eighteen: Tear of the Gods
Epilogue: Challenge
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the same author
About the Publisher
THE WEATHER WORSENED.
Dark clouds roiled overhead as angry lightning flashed, piercing the night’s blackness on all quarters. The lookout atop the highest mast of the ship Ishap’s Dawn thought he saw a flicker of movement in the distance and squinted against the murk. He tried to use his hand to shield his eyes as the salt spray and biting cold wind filled them with tears. He blinked them away and whatever movement he thought he had seen was gone.
Night and the threat of storms had forced the lookout to spend a miserable watch aloft, against the unlikely chance the captain had drifted off course. It was hardly possible, considered the lookout, as the captain was a knowledgeable seaman, chosen for his skill at avoiding danger as much as any other quality. And he knew as well as any man how hazardous this passage was. The Temple held the cargo’s value second to none, and rumours of possible raiders along the Quegan coast had dictated a hazardous tack near Widow’s Point, a rocky area best avoided if possible. But Ishap’s Dawn was crewed by experienced sailors, who were now closely attentive to the captain’s orders, and each was quick to respond, for every man aloft knew that, once upon the rocks at Widow’s Point, no ship survived. Each man feared for his own life – that was only natural – but these men were chosen not only for their seamanship, but also for fealty to the Temple. And they all knew how precious their cargo was to the Temple.
In the hold below, eight monks of the Temple of Ishap in Krondor stood around a most holy artifact, the Tear of the Gods. A jewel of astonishing size, easily as long as a large man’s arm and twice as thick, it was illuminated from within by a mystic light. Once every ten years a new Tear was formed in a hidden monastery in a tiny secret valley in the Grey Tower Mountains. When it was ready and most holy rites completed, a heavily armed caravan transported
