"Cook,.Rick.-.Wizardry.03-04.-.Cursed.And.Consulted" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Rick)

magic. Dwarves can kill this new wizard."

His two companions nodded and growled assent. King Tosig
glowered back and felt a tiny burning sensation kindle somewhere
up under his breastbone. At that moment he truly wanted to kill the
new wizard who had brought him all this trouble.

At that moment the new wizard wouldn't have been at all averse to
being killed.

Like King Tosig's hall, the chamber was underground and dimly lit.
But instead of rough stone, the walls were fine mosaics in subdued
and tasteful patterns. There were no smoky torches here, only a
diffuse radiance that seemed to emanate from everywhere in the
room. And while the creature that faced the two humans across the
table might be decidedly odd, by no stretch of the imagination
could it be called either ugly or stinking.

But that did not mean the wizard was enjoying himself.

"Okay, look," William Irving Zumwalt said. "If the dryads mark their
trees our woodcutters will leave them alone. But in return our
people can cut other trees and use the forest without being
harassed."

The being across the nacreous table cocked its head, as if
listening to far-away voices. It was manlike, but then so is a gorilla if
you stretch the term far enough. Parchment skin stretched over
delicate bones. Fingers so long they were almost tentacles.
Enormous dark eyes that slanted at the corners. Ears blood-pink
and pointed. The thing was at once inhumanly beautiful and deeply
disturbing.

The silence dragged on. Wiz shifted and fidgeted while the
creature sat with its head to one side and its eyes focused on
things far beyond its visitor. Elven magic could warp time to make
centuries pass in a single night. But Wiz was finding that non-
mortals didn't need magic to make a night drag on for centuries.

"It will be done," the creature said finally. "The trees will be
marked."

"But when?"

The other lifted a delicate hand and waved it airily. "Soon," it fluted.

Wiz took a tighter rein on his temper. "Soon" to a non-mortal meant
any time in the next geologic eonЧif then.

"But precisely when? I can't go back to my people and tell them