Read To Be A Maestro (The Maestro Chronicles) for Free Online Page A

Silvia had followed him into the office and they began looking at each other, perhaps wondering which one of them should honor his request. His father was the first to speak. “I’ll go get you some rocks,” he said without asking what they were for. “Do you want me to have Sergeant Keenan send in the first person?”
    “That would be great,” Daniel replied and gave a nod of thanks as his father turned and walked out the door.
    “What did the Queen have to say after you healed her?” Gina asked while brushing dark hair away from her face. She always had worn her hair long, ever since they were children together growing up on Mount Tannakonna.
    “She is pleased, especially since I looked into her recipe and gave her the body she should have had if the Lethal Growths had n ot ravaged it,” Daniel replied.
    “Recipe, I don’t know what you mean by that,” Gina admitted, and how would she know?
    Rather than get into matters of the Aakasear with a non-Aakacarn, he decided to keep the answer simple. “It means I healed her pretty much the same way I did those here who had been Condemneds.”
    Gina nodded her head, apparently satisfied with the answer, Tim not so much. He shook his shaggy head. “I understand that you healed the impossible, you’ve done that before. What I want to know is, did you tell her about the flute of Della Lain and how close it came to Tarin Conn being freed?”
    The facts were not a secret and Daniel did not mean to keep his friends in the dark, this was simply the first chance he had to discuss the matter with them. The intention had been to inform them earlier after he returned from leaving a message for the generals and his fellow Knights of the Realm at Fort Casum, but Sherree side-tracked him, and what a wonderful experience that turned out to be.
    “I had to issue a Realm Alert, made my report, and the Queen declared the danger valid at a joint meeting of the ministers and various Royal Knights of the Realm. I and all other nobles of the realm have been ordered to raise our musters and prepare the kingdom for war. The kingdom of Ducaun will be ready when the Serpent Guild launches its war for dominance, even if the other nations fail to be,” Daniel told them gravely, for it was not a matter to be spoken of lightly, and even Tim did not try to make a joke out of it.
    “Raise a muster, does that mean you need to raise an army of volunteers?” Gina asked. Standing in her pink-dyed buckskins with a large hunting knife belted to her waist made her appear dangerous, which is exactly what she was, and only a fool thought the mountain beauty to be defenseless.
    Daniel looked at the pair of Teki. “We’re with you all the way,” they both assured him, not that he doubted their loyalty.
    “I’m glad you are,” he told them and focused on Tim and Gina, he had a strong suspicion as to why she was asking. “Each Lord of the Land must draw people from his or her jurisdiction and attract as many volunteers as they can from the many areas of Ducaun that are independent of any lords. I’ve only a small number of tenant farmers and about fifty guardsmen at my estate southwest of Ducanton, which is not much of a muster.”
    “Then you need us,” Tim declared. “Where do we sign up?”
    Daniel smiled at his long time friend, the drummer whose friendship often provided a steady beat, and who had been with him through some of the toughest times of his life, and at Gina standing there with arms folded across her chest as if determined to march right along with he and her husband.
    “I think you should let them help,” his mother offered her valued opinion. “Your father and I will also help in whatever way we can.”
    Daniel wanted to keep them safe and send them back to their home on Mount Tannakonna; no, to his estate in the south, or keep them here in his new holding. The trouble was, when the war starts, and it will sooner or later, no one will be safe anywhere. They wanted to help