Read The Lightning Wastes (The Traveler's Gate Chronicles: Collection #3) for Free Online Page A

“Name it whatever you like, son. I named my first ash hound after a boy who used to throw sticks at me. Petty, I know, but I got a sense of satisfaction out of being the one to throw the sticks for a change. So, Taichon, what kind of bait did you use? I could have sworn I saw you walking down here with the skull of a thief, but could you perhaps have had a stretch of hangman's noose somewhere about you?”
    Ignored completely. Rasmus felt like this was his lot entirely too often, and it was always Taichon's fault. He acted like he didn't plead for the attention, that he didn't beg and dance like a dog for scraps, but Rasmus knew the real story.
    While the other two talked excitedly about the potential uses for a tame cavern-worm, Rasmus watched his dog drag the end of a bone all over the red dust of the cavern floor. He lost himself in a vision of a snapdragon lurching up the side of the cliff, wreathed in flame, and gulping up the ash hound in its crocodile jaws. It would turn on Petrus and Taichon, but Rasmus would save the day at the last second by commanding it in an overwhelming burst of psychic talent. Maybe that would count as his first successful summons, and he could forget the dog ever existed.
    Rasmus replayed this version of events in his mind several times—sometimes Taichon escaped with no wounds except to his pride, sometimes his shu'kra was sliced to ribbons, and sometimes Taichon suffered terrible wounds before Rasmus could finally bring the snapdragon to heel—until he noticed Tutor Petrus clearing his throat pointedly.
    “At the risk of repeating myself, it is time for you to be about your chores. The tower sanctuary needs water, after which you should deliver four buckets to my personal dwelling. Quickly, now.”
    Taichon patted his worm on the flank one more time, and it slithered backwards into the rock, no doubt to continue tunneling somewhere far below. Rasmus didn't spare his hound a second glance. He simply followed Tutor Petrus, hoping the old man would notice his dedication and focus.
    Damasca controlled most of the useful routes through Naraka. Rasmus had always assumed this was because of the inherent superiority of Damasca-trained Travelers versus those taught in Enosh or on their own, but it had turned out there was a much simpler reason. Damasca simply built an outpost around each waypoint, a towering obsidian obelisk marked by golden runes. The waypoints marked the only places where you could make a Gate into or out of Naraka, so they became the only points of strategic importance in the entire Territory. Enosh controlled the routes in and around their one city, but they could have that barren stretch of wilderness. Between all the other major cities, Damasca owned the roads.
    The outposts were villages, really, each centered around a waypoint leading to one of the kingdom's major cities. Rasmus and Taichon approached the Bel Calem outpost, which was surrounded by a ten-foot wall made of bound planks of coal-black wood. Rasmus had only ever seen one tree in Naraka, and it wasn't the kind that you would cut down for wood. Without water or sun he didn't see how any plants could survive here anyway, but he was assured that the charwood was in fact native, and was heat-resistant enough for the climate here. He had never seen the wall burst into flames, so he supposed the material must live up to its reputation.
    Inside the walls, past a couple of savage-looking Itasas tribesmen standing guard, the complex looked largely empty. Only a handful of buildings were scattered all over the empty space inside the wall, leaving plenty of bare ground—one stubby tower of red stone for the full Travelers, one blocky barracks of charwood for the Itasas tribe, a second, almost identical charwood building for holding supplies, and the tiled courtyard surrounding the obsidian tree. Its spiked black branches stabbed into the sky, almost higher than the walls. In the very center of the wall, surrounded by all