Martínez The Queen's Adept

3. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-84-939203-8-8
Verlag: Sportula Ediciones
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 350 Seiten

Reihe: The Queen's Adept

The People's Covenant and God's Hammer have raged a Cold War that has lasted for over twenty years. A war without armies, where battles are fought in the dark and information is the most dangerous weapon. In this world -which sometimes seems the Middle Ages, sometimes the Renaissance and sometimes the Nineteenth Century- lives Yáxtor Brandan, empirical adept at the service of the Queen of Alboné. A relentless, amoral and unscrupulous character, Yáxtor fights to recover his own past as he tries to prevent a new player in the espionage game to end the world, as he knows it. A fascinating fast-moving and complex plot, full of tension and surprises and excellently paced; a main character for whom it should be impossible to feel the slightest sympathy, and yet somehow we do, even as his cruelty disturbs us more and more -an extremely difficult feat to pull off so successfully; powerful secondary actors, who either leave you with a sense of uneasiness with regard to their motivations and loyalties, or make you want to shout out -as people did in the early days of cinema- 'Look out, don't trust him!'; and a pervading atmosphere of tragedy, especially in a final unexpected and shocking, yet on reflection almost inevitable, scene. In short, a totally addictive and highly original novel set in a world that is at once both strangely familiar and disturbingly alien. -Steve Redwood, author of Fisher of Devils.

Candás, 1965 Rodolfo Martínez publica su primer relato en 1987 y no tarda en convertirse en uno de los autores indispensables de la literatura fantástica española, aunque si una característica define su obra es la del mestizaje de géneros, mezclando con engañosa sencillez y sin ningún rubor numerosos registros, desde la ciencia ficción y la fantasía hasta la novela negra y el thriller, consiguiendo que sus obras sean difícilmente encasillables. Ganador del premio Minotauro con Los sicarios del cielo (ahora en Sportula como Este incómodo ropaje), ha cosechado numerosos galardones a lo largo de su carrera literaria, como el Asturias de Novela, el UPV de relato fantástico y, en varias ocasiones, el Ignotus (en sus categorías de novela, novela corta y cuento). Su obra holmesiana, compuesta hasta el momento de cuatro libros, ha sido traducida al portugués, al polaco, al turco y al francés y varios de sus relatos han aparecido en publicaciones francesas. En 2009 y con El adepto de la Reina, inició un nuevo ciclo narrativo en el que conviven elementos de la novela de espías de acción con algunos de los temas y escenarios más característicos de la fantasía.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Martínez, Rodolfo

Leseproben

PROLOGUE

It is always the uninvited guest who revives the party… or just busts it.

—Qérlex Targerian

Night fell on the city in an abrupt way, almost by treachery, but no one cared. Torches and bonfires had been lit for some time, and celebrations had begun hours earlier. Outside, darkness might quickly become mistress of the world, but no one in the city noticed.

They also did not notice the foreigner who left the party towards the coast. They all had things to do at the time, and probably the foreigner too. A secret rendezvous? Business? A lover? Nobody cared.

He wore a short grey tunic and was half wrapped in a cloak of the same colour. Compared with the colour orgy of the bacchantes, he was like a furtive shadow.

He soon left the city walls behind and entered with a firm step the olive grove that went on to die almost at the seashore. He paused a moment beside a rock and looked for something in a hollow there. While checking with his hands that everything was where it should be, he glanced back at the distant city lights.

He hoisted a bag on to his shoulders, went on his way and soon he reached the top of a cliff, where he could still hear the nearby tide snoring.

Someone came out of the shadows.

“You’re late,” a voice said.

The man stopped, and his hand touched the hilt of the dagger at his waist.

“Or you’ve come too soon,” he replied. His voice had a cold, sharp quality, as if words were a nuisance he had to get rid of as soon as possible.

The newcomer shrugged.

“The changing of the guard will be within the hour,” he said. “We must hurry.”

The other nodded and took off his cloak and tunic. He took something from the bag, a dark cloth which he then deployed and began to put on. The material clung to his body as if it were part of him, and when he was fully clothed no part of his body was distinguishable in the gloom apart from his head and the hard glitter of his eyes.

He put the bag on his back.

“I’m ready,” he said.

His companion nodded and handed him a mask. While contemplating how it was placed over the other man’s mouth, he said, reluctantly:

“For the Queen.”

The man seemed to find the words amusing, but there was no mockery in his voice when he answered:

“For the Queen.”

He took a breath, looked back one last time and walked to the edge of the cliff. A few feet away, his walk quickly turned into a run that led him nowhere. With his last step he pushed up and forward, and suddenly his body became a projectile fired into the sky. For a moment it seemed he would take flight, as the legendary Ítastos had done from the maze of War Island. Then, the world caught him with a relentless grip and he began to descend.

A few seconds later, the sea opened to receive him.

The guard never knew what killed him. He had approached the edge of the seafront, perhaps as a way to break the tedium of the watch. With his torch held high, he looked at the dark surface of the sea and could not help but notice, with a frown, the strange trail of bubbles coming in his direction.

He half turned, perhaps to call one of his companions, but he stopped when he heard the unmistakable splash of something coming out of the water.

And what came out was a dark and fluid shape that fell on him before he could do anything. He felt a slippery but relentless hand at his throat and, suddenly, everything he was began to fade away through the cold wound in his side, where a dagger had made its way.

His murderer kept him still until he was sure he was dead. Only then did he take the body to the edge of the seafront and, silently, let the sea take care of it. He checked the time by the position of the moon, little more than a sliver of silver that would disappear in a couple of days, picked up the torch the guard had dropped on the ground and waved it in the air twice; first to the left, then to the right. A point of distant light answered him with the same signal.

He left the torch between two rocks and began to walk, in absolute silence, along the seafront. He did not have much time, but it would be enough.

They noticed the absence of the guard as he was finishing his work.

He placed a charge under the waterline of the last ship and activated it with the proper unpronounceable word. Then he put the mask over his mouth again and dived once more.

The military port was beginning to awaken, and they would probably soon find out what had happened to the guard, but by then it would be too late. Under the water, he had no problem leaving the port limits. He surfaced once, took a quick look at what was happening, and then dived again.

He swam with his arms at his sides; his whole body turned into a giant fin that quickly drove him where he wanted to go. Soon he reached a small beach on the outskirts of the city. There was a group of bacchantes there, dancing around the bonfires, drunk from themselves and from the wine out of half a dozen amphorae lying in the sand.

He swam to the edge of the beach, where a group of rocks concealed the light of bonfires. The same man he had met on the cliff was waiting there.

Once out of the water, he took off his strange costume and mask. The other man kept it all in a bundle, and he began to get dressed with the dry clothes he had brought: a cheerfully coloured tunic and a cape trimmed in red. He quickly put them on and, while the other man threw the pack onto his back, he finished tying his shoes.

“Was there any problem?”

He looked at the distant port, where torches looked like crazy points of light ranging from side to side.

“Nothing important,” he said.

“You should get out of here soon.”

“I still have something to do before I leave.”

The other man smiled grimly.

“As you wish.”

Without another word, he left the rocks and joined the party on the beach, while his companion began to walk inland.

An unknown woman handed him a jar and he took a long swig of a wine too sweet for his taste. Then he joined the sprawling dance by the fires.

He was dancing when the explosions began, but he continued as if nothing had happened, like most of his companions, too drunk to realize what was happening. For them, the distant explosions and the burning light of the ships were just another part of the party.

There were some who realized what was happening and left the beach, however. Though nothing they could do would be of any help.

The main battle fleet of Painé had just become a pile of burning timbers that no longer served anyone.

He arrived at his villa just before dawn.

He threw the cape down on the floor and splashed his face with the water from the bucket the slaves had prepared. In the kitchen he found some bread and cold chicken and ate it all sitting by the fire while he lazily smoked a long briar pipe.

With hunger satisfied and a clear head, he went into the bedroom.

She was waiting for him there, asleep, and her body, as drawn by the sheets close to her skin, was a promise of another hunger yet to be satiated. He took off his tunic in silence and with two feline movements got into the bed.

The woman awoke soon enough and looked at him for a moment with her dark eyes.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

He shrugged and smiled almost reluctantly.

“There was much to celebrate,” he said.

She ran a hand full of rings over his crotch and felt and explored, as if to make sure everything was intact and in place.

“Too tired?” she asked again.

He shook his head and touched the woman’s belly. She moaned and her mouth took hold of him with a desire too fierce to be genuine.

They had barely started the erotic game when he realized they were not alone in the room. Nothing in his face or his body indicated he had realized, however, and he continued as if nothing else mattered.

But his senses were alert to everything that went on around him and he quickly perceived the stealthy footsteps behind him.

Only one man? Did they believe one man would be enough to kill him? He almost felt insulted.

He continued enjoying the woman, and when he perceived his attacker was about...