"Dragonlance - Deathgate Cycle 06 - Into the Labyrinth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deathgate Cycle)

CHAPTER 1

ABARRACH

ABARRACH: WORLD OF STONE, WORLD OF DARKNESS LIT BY THE fires of molten sea, world of stalagmites and stalactites, world of fire dragons, world of poisonous air and sulfurous fumes, world of magic.

Abarrach: world of the dead.

Xar, Lord of the Nexus, and now Lord of Abarrach, sat back in his chair, rubbed his eyes. The rune-constructs he was studying were starting to blur together. He'd almost made a mistakeЧand that was inexcusable. But he had caught himself in time, corrected it. Closing his aching eyes, he went over the construct again in his mind.

Begin with the heart-rune. Connect this sigil's stem to an adjoining rune's base. Inscribe the sigla on the breast, working upward to the head. Yes, that was where he'd gone wrong the first few times. The head was importantЧ vital. Then draw the sigla on the trunk, finally the arms, the legs.

It was perfect. He could find no flaw. In his mind's eye, he imagined the dead body on which he'd been working rising up and living again. A corrupt form of life, admittedly, but a beneficial one. The corpse was far more useful now than it would have been moldering in the ground.

Xar smiled in triumph, but it was a triumph whose life span was shorter than that of his imaginary defunct. His thoughts went something like this:

I can raise the dead.

At least I am fairly certain I can raise the dead.

I can't be sure.

That was the pall over his elation. There were no dead for him to raise. Or rather, there were too many dead. Just not dead enough.

In bitter frustration, Xar slammed his hands down on the elaborately conceived rune-construct. The rune-bones* went flying, skittering and sliding off the table onto the floor.

*A game played on Abarrach, similar to an ancient game known on Earth as mah-jongg. The playing pieces are inscribed with the sigla used by both Patryns and Sartan to work their magic. Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle.

Xar paid no attention to them. He could always put the construct together again. Again and again. He knew it as well as he knew the rune-magic to conjure up water. For all the good it would do him.

Xar needed a corpse. One not more than three days dead. One that hadn't been seized by these wretched lazars.* Irritably he swept the last few remaining rune-bones to the floor.

*The Sartan inhabiting Abarrach learned to practice the forbidden art of necromancy, began giving a dreadful type of life to the corpses of their dead. The dead became slaves, working for the living. If the dead are brought back too soon after death, the soul does not leave the body, but remains tied to it. These Sartan become lazarЧfearful beings who inhabit simultaneously both the plane of the living and the realm of the dead. A lazar can find no peace, no rest. Its "life" is constant torment. Fire Sea, vol. 3 of The Death Gate Cycle.

He left the room he used as his study, headed for his private chambers. On his way, he passed by the library. And there was Kleitus, the Dynast, former ruler (until his death) of Necropolis, the largest city on Abarrach. At his death, Kleitus had become a lazarЧone of the living dead. Now the Dynast's gruesome form, which was neither dead nor alive, wandered the halls and corridors of the palace that had once been his. The lazar thought it was still his. Xar knew better, but he saw no reason to disabuse Kleitus of the notion.

The Lord of the Nexus steeled himself to speak to the Lord of the Living Dead. Xar had fought many terrible foes during his struggles to free his people from the Labyrinth. Dragons, wolfen, snogs, chaodynЧevery monster the Labyrinth could create. Xar feared nothing. Nothing living. The lord couldn't help feeling a qualm deep in his bowels when he looked into the hideous, ever-shifting death-mask face of the lazar. Xar saw the hatred in the eyesЧthe hatred that the dead bore the living of Abarrach.

An encounter with Kleitus was never pleasant. Xar generally avoided the lazar. The lord found it uncomfortable talking to a being who had one thought on his mind: death. Your death.

The sigla on Xar's body glowed blue, defending him from attack. The blue light was reflected in the Dynast's dead eyes, which glittered with disappointment. The lazar had tried once, on Xar's arrival, to kill the Patryn. The battle between the two had been brief, spectacular. Kleitus had never tried it again. But the lazar dreamed of it during the endless hours of his tormented existence. He never failed to mention it when they came together.

"Someday, Xar," said Kleitus, the corpse talking, "I will catch you unawares. And then you will join us."

"...join us," came the unhappy echo of the lazar's soul. The two parts of the dead always spoke together, the soul being just a bit slower than the body.

"It must be nice for you to have a goal still," Xar said somewhat testily. He couldn't help it. The lazar made him nervous. But the lord needed help, information, and Kleitus was the only oneЧso far as Xar could determineЧ who might have it. "I have a goal myself. One I would like to discuss with you. If you have the time?" Nervousness made Xar sarcastic.

Try as he might, Xar could not look for long at the lazar's face. It was the face of a corpseЧa murdered corpse, for Kleitus had himself been slain by another lazar, had then been brought back to hideous life. The face would sometimes be the face of one long dead, and then suddenly it would be the face of Kleitus as he had been when he was alive. The transformation occurred when the soul moved into the body, struggled to renew life, regain what it had once possessed. Thwarted, the soul flew out of the body, tried vainly to free itself from its prison. The soul's continual rage and frustration gave an unnatural warmth to the chill, dead flesh.