Read The Dragonbone Chair for Free Online

were we talking about, then? Oh, yes, the castle.” Morgenes cleared a place on the table and then—holding his flask carefully—vaulted up with surprising ease to sit, slippered feet dangling half a cubit above the floor. He sipped again.
    “I’m afraid this story starts long before our King John. We shall begin with the first men and women to come to Osten Ard—simple folk, living on the banks of the Gleniwent. They were mostly herdsmen and fisher-folk, perhaps driven out from the lost West over some land-bridge that no longer exists. They caused little trouble for the masters of Osten Ard....”
    “But I thought you said they were the first to come here?” Simon interrupted, secretly pleased he had caught Morgenes in a contradiction.
    “No. I said they were the first men. The Sithi held this land long before any man walked on it.”
    “You mean there really were Little Folk?” Simon grinned. “Just like Shem Horsegroom tells of? Pookahs and niskies and all?” This was exciting.
    Morgenes shook his head vigorously and took another swallow. “Not only were, are —although that jumps ahead of my narrative—and they are by no means “little folk” ... wait, lad, let me go on.”
    Simon hunched forward and tried to look patient. “Yes?”
    “Well, as I mentioned, the men and Sithi were peaceful neighbors—true, there was an occasional dispute over grazing land or some such, but since mankind seemed no real threat the Fair Folk were generous. As time went on, men began to build cities, sometimes only a half a day’s walk from Sithi lands. Later still a great kingdom arose on the rocky peninsula of Nabban, and the mortal men of Osten Ard began to look there for guidance. Are you still following my trail, boy?”
    Simon nodded.
    “Good.” A long draught. “Well, the land seemed quite big enough for all to share, until black iron came over the water.”
    “What? Black iron?” Simon was immediately stilled by the doctor’s sharp look.
    “The shipmen out of the near-forgotten west, the Rimmersmen,” Morgenes continued. “They landed in the north, armed men fierce as bears, riding in their long serpent-boats.”
    “The Rimmersmen?” Simon wondered. “Like Duke Isgrimnur at the court? On boats?”
    “They were great seafarers before they settled here, the Duke’s ancestors,” Morgenes affirmed. “But when they first came they were not searching for grazing or farming land, but for plunder. Most importantly though, they brought iron—or at least the secret of shaping it. They made iron swords and spears, weapons that would not break like the bronze of Osten Ard; weapons that could beat down even the witchwood of the Sithi.”
    Morgenes rose and refilled his beaker from a covered bucket standing on a cathedral of books beside the wall. Instead of returning to the table he stopped to finger the shiny epaulets of the armor suit.
    “None stood against them for long—the cold, hard spirit of the iron seemed in the shipmen themselves as much as in their blades. Many folk fled south, moving closer to the protection of Nabban’s frontier outposts. The Nabbanai legions, well-organized garrison forces, resisted for a while. Finally they, too, were forced to abandon the Frostmarch to the Rimmersmen. There ... was much slaughter.”
    Simon squirmed happily. “What about the Sithi? You said they had no iron?”
    “It was deadly to them.” The doctor licked his finger and rubbed away a spot on the polished wood of the breastplate. “Even they could not defeat the Rimmersmen in open battle, but,” he pointed the dusty finger at Simon, as if this fact concerned him personally, “but the Sithi knew their land. They were close to it—a part of it, even—in a way that the invaders could never be. They held their own for a long time, falling slowly back on places of strength. The chiefest of these—and the reason for this whole discourse—was Asu’a. The Hayholt.”
    “This castle? The Sithi lived in the