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

Xar looked at Kleitus, looked away hastily.

"Will you accompany me to the library?" Xar asked with a polite gesture, his gaze anywhere but on the corpse.

The lazar followed willingly. Kleitus had no particular desire to be of assistance to the Lord of the Nexus, as Xar well knew. The lazar came because there was always the possibility that Xar might weaken, inadvertently lower his defenses. Kleitus came because he hoped to murder Xar.

Alone in the room with the lazar, Xar considered briefly summoning another Patryn to stand guard. He immediately abandoned the idea, was aghast at himself for even thinking such a thing. Not only would such a summons make him appear weak in the eyes of his peopleЧwho worshipped himЧbut he wanted no one else to know the subject of his discussions.

Consequently, though he did so with misgivings, Xar shut the door made of braided kairn grass, marked it with Patryn runes of warding so that it could not be opened. He drew these runes over faded Sartan runes, Sartan magic that had long ago ceased to function.

Kleitus's lifeless eyes sprang suddenly to life, focused on Xar's throat. The dead fingers twitched in anticipation.

"No, no, my friend," Xar said pleasantly. "Another day, perhaps. Or would you like to come again within the circle of my power? Would you like to feel again my magic starting to unravel your existence?"

Kleitus stared at him with unblinking hatred. "What do you want, Lord of the Nexus?"

"...Nexus," came the sad echo.

"I want to sit down," Xar said. "I've had a wearing time of it. Two days and nights on the rune-construct. But I have solved it. I now know the secret to the art of necromancy. I can now raise the dead."

"Congratulations," said Kleitus, and the dead lips curled in a sneer. "You can now destroy your people as we destroyed ours."

Xar let that pass. The lazar tended to have a dark outlook on things. He supposed he couldn't blame them.

The lord took his seat at a large stone table whose top was covered with dusty volumes: a treasure-trove of Sartan lore. Xar had spent as much time studying these works as possible, considering the myriad duties of a lord about to lead his people to war. But this time spent among the Sartan books was minute compared to the years Kleitus had spent. And Xar was at a disadvantage: he was forced to read the material in a foreign languageЧthe Sartan language. Although he had mastered that language while in the Nexus, the task of breaking down the Sartan rune-structure, then rebuilding it into Patryn thought, was exhausting and time-consuming.

Xar could never, under any circumstances, think like a Sartan.

Kleitus had the information Xar needed. Kleitus had delved deep into these books. Kleitus wasЧor had beenЧa Sartan himself. He knew. He understood. But how to worm it out of the corpse? That was the tricky part.

Xar wasn't fooled by the lazar's shambling walk and bloodthirsty demeanor. Kleitus was playing a far more subtle game. An army of living, warm-blooded beings had recently arrived on AbarrachЧPatryns, brought here by Xar, brought here to train for war. The lazar hungered after these living beings, longed to destroy the life that the dead coveted and at the same time found so abhorrent. The lazar could not fight the Patryns. The Patryns were too powerful.

But it required an immense outlay of the Patryns' magic to sustain life in the darksome caverns of Abarrach. The Patryns were beginning to weakenЧever so slightly. So had the Sartan weakened before them; so had many of the Sartan died.

Time. The dead had time. Not soon, but inevitably, the Patryn magic would start to crumble. And then the lazar would strike. Xar didn't plan to be here that long. He had found what he'd come to Abarrach to find. Now he just needed to determine whether or not he'd really found it.

Kleitus did not sit down. The lazar can never rest in one place long, but are constantly moving, wandering, searching for something they have lost all hope of discovering.

Xar did not look at the animated corpse, shuffling back and forth in front of him. He looked instead at the dusty volumes lying on the table.

"I want to be able to test my knowledge of necromancy," Xar said. "I want to know if I can actually raise the dead."

"What is stopping you?" Kleitus demanded.

"... stopping you?"

Xar frowned. The annoying echo was like a buzzing in his ears, and it always came just when he was about to speak, interrupting him, breaking the chain of his thought.

"I need a corpse. And don't tell me to use my own people. That is out of the question. I personally saved the life of every Patryn I brought with me from the Nexus."