Daughter of the Empire. Janny Wurts
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RAYMOND E. FEIST
and
JANNY WURTS
Daughter of the Empire
Book One of the Empire Trilogy
Voyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by
Grafton Books 1987
Copyright © Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts 1987
The Authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780586074817
Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007375646
Version: 2019-01-15
This book is dedicated to
Harold Matson
with deep appreciation, respect, and affection
Contents
Dedication
Map
The priest struck the gong.
The sound reverberated off the temple’s vaulted domes, splendid with brightly coloured carvings. The solitary note echoed back and forth, diminishing to a remembered tone, a ghost of sound.
Mara knelt, the cold stones of the temple floor draining the warmth from her. She shivered, though not from chill, then glanced slightly to the left, where another initiate knelt in a pose identical to her own, duplicating Mara’s movements as she lifted the white head covering of a novice of the Order of Lashima, Goddess of the Inner Light. Awkwardly posed with the linen draped like a tent above her head, Mara impatiently awaited the moment when the headdress could be lowered and tied. She had barely lifted the cloth and already the thing dragged at her arms like stone weights! The gong sounded again. Reminded of the goddess’s eternal presence, Mara inwardly winced at her irreverent thoughts. Now, of all times, her attention must not stray. Silently she begged the goddess’s forgiveness, pleading nerves – fatigue and excitement combined with apprehension. Mara prayed to the Lady to guide her to the inner peace she so fervently desired.
The gong chimed again, the third ring of twenty-two, twenty for the gods, one for the Light of Heaven, and one for the imperfect children who now waited to join in the service of the Goddess of Wisdom of the Upper Heaven. At seventeen years of age, Mara prepared to renounce the temporal world, like the girl at her side who – in another nineteen chimings of the gong – would be counted her sister, though they had met only two weeks before.
Mara