"Eisenstein,.Phyllis.-.Elementals.2.-.1988.-.Crystal.Palace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisenstein Phyllis)

Chapter 2
Atop the only remaining tower of a ruined castle, a gaunt, pale-bearded man
raised his arms in conjuraнtion. He was Everand, who had lived three mortal
lifetimes already and called himself a sorcerer. His clothes were rags, his
fingernails and the creases of his skin were dark with grime, his eyes were
reddened with lack of sleep, but he smiled. He savored the moment as if it were
fine wine, and then he could not keep from shouting, УNow! Now!Ф as exultation
rose strong within him, and power. And with a wild gesнture, he flung both at
the clear evening sky.
From the horizon, scattered wisps of cloud, flushed pink by the setting sun,
came like starlings to a cherry tree. From every direction they sped, meeting
above the crumbled walls of the castle in a wild cyclone, darkening as they
gathered and piling up, up, into a towering thunderhead. Roiling, billowing like
smoke from some vast conflagration, the cloud expanded upward until its summit
began to flatten and spread as against some invisible barrier. Only then did the
first bolt of lightning lash earthward, illuminating Everand and his lonely
citadel with a ghastly whiteness.
The castle stood in the heart of a great and trackless forest. Once, it had been
many-spired, its lofty walls and turrets built of demon-quarried marble. Once,
solid and polished smooth and ever-renewed, it had been the proud residence of a
powerful sorcerer. But with his death the castle, too, had died, its towers
collapsing, roofs caving in, walls crumbling. Now, where stone still stood on
stone, weeds grew from the cracked mortar, and even trees had taken root.
Everand called the ruin his home; he had no other.
His poor shelter of wood and broken stone, patched together with his own hands
against the base of the standing tower, betrayed his weakness as a sorcerer.
Though he could command clouds, though he could strike men dead from afar,
though he could turn the forest night into day with a nod of his head, he could
not build himself a proper dwelling. For three mortal lifetimes he had studied
sorcery, and still there were many things other sorcerers accomplished easily
that remained beyond him. Too many.
In the castleТs open courtyard, upon the bare ground where the lightning danced
and crackled, lay a circlet of copper-gold alloy as big around as a manТs arm.
Bolt after bolt of lightning played about it, making its ruddy, polished surface
gleam sun-bright; Everand could feel the force of each stroke in the fine-drawn
copper wires wound about his wrists and arms, in the copper-gold ring on the
first finger of his right hand. And with each stroke he looked for flames to
gush abruptly from the circlet, flames that would roar and thrash and finally
subside into some bizarre, misshapen creature that would yield him its name and
do his bidding forever. A Fire demon. The first of many Fire demons. EverandТs
fingers curled and worked against each other with his eagerness.
Brilliant in the lightningТs glare, the arm ring lay empty on the steaming
earth.
Empty.
Thunder seemed to echo in his ears long after darkнness had settled upon the
castle, long after he had allowed the cloud to shred apart like rotting cloth
and reveal the icy stars. He stood in the dark for a time, the afterimage of the
armlet glowing in his mindТs eye. Step by step, he called the details of the
conjuration from his memory, searching for some flaw. But no; everything had
been perfectЧthe weighing and mixing and smelting of the alloy, the words, the