Read A Dream of Mortals (Book #15 in the Sorcerer's Ring) for Free Online

lying on a broad
wooden platform, being hoisted by ropes at either end of it. Someone high above
was yanking on the ropes, squeaking with age, and with each yank, the platform
rose a bit higher. She was being raised up alongside steep, endless cliffs, the
same cliffs she recognized from before she’d passed out. The cliffs which had
been crowned by parapets and gleaming knights.
    Remembering, Gwen turned and craned her neck,
and she looked down and immediately felt dizzy. They were hundreds of feet above
the desert floor, and rising.
    She turned and looked up, and a hundred feet
above them, she saw the parapets, her vision obscured by the sun, and the knights
looking down, getting closer with each yank of the cords.
    Gwen immediately turned and scanned the
platform, and was flooded with relief to see all of her people were still with
her: Kendrick, Sandara, Steffen, Arliss, Aberthol, Illepra, the baby Krea,
Stara, Brant, Atme, and several of the Silver. They all lay on the platform,
all being tended to by nomads who poured water into their mouths and on their
faces. Gwen felt a rush of gratitude toward these strange nomadic creatures who
had saved their lives.
    Gwen closed her eyes again, lay her head back
on the hard wood, as Krohn curled up beside her, and her head felt as if it
weighed a million pounds. All was comfortably silent, no sound up here but that
of the wind, and of the ropes creaking. She had traveled so far, for so long,
and wondered when it all wound end. Soon they would be at the top, and she only
prayed that the knights, whoever they were, were as hospitable as these nomads
from the desert.
    With each yank, the suns grew stronger, hotter,
no shade under which to hide. She felt as if she were burning to a crisp, as if
she were being hoisted to the center of the sun itself.
    Gwendolyn opened her eyes as she felt a final
jolt, and realized she’d fallen back asleep. She felt movement and she realized
she was being carried gingerly by the nomads, all placing her and her people back
on the canvas tarps and carrying them off the platform and onto the parapets. Gwendolyn
felt herself finally placed down, gently, onto a stone floor, and she looked up
and blinked several times into the sun. She was too exhausted to lift her neck,
not sure whether she was still awake or dreaming.
    Coming into view were dozens of knights, approaching
her, dressed in immaculate shiny plate and chain mail, crowding around her and
looking down at her in curiosity. Gwen could not understand how knights could
be out here in this great desert, in this vast waste in the middle of nowhere,
how they could be standing guard at the top of this immense ridge, beneath
these suns. How did they survive out here? What were they guarding? Where did
they get such regal armor? Was this all a dream?
    Even the Ring, with its ancient tradition of
grandeur, had little armor to match what these men wore. It was the most
intricate armor she’d ever laid eye upon, forged of silver and platinum and
some other metal she could not recognize, etched with intricate markings, and
with weaponry to match. These men were clearly professional soldiers. It reminded
her of the days when she was a young girl and accompanied her father onto the
field; he would show her the soldiers, and she would look up and see them lined
up with such splendor. Gwen had wondered how such beauty could exist, how it could
even be possible. Perhaps she had died and this was her version of heaven.
    But then she heard one of them step forward,
out in front of the others, remove his helmet and look down at, his bright blue
eyes filled with wisdom and compassion. Perhaps in his thirties, he had a
startling appearance, his head stark bald, and wearing a light blond beard.
Clearly, he was the officer in charge.
    The knight turned his attention to the nomads.
    “Are they alive?” he asked.
    One of the nomads, in response, reached out
with his long staff and gently prodded Gwendolyn, who shifted