"05 - The Chaos Curse - R A Salvatore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cleric Quintet)

"You have word from Cadderly?"
"No," Thobicus answered honestly Indeed, the dean had heard nothing since Cadderly and his companions had gone into the mountains earlier that winter. But Thobicus believed that the army would not be needed, believed that Cadderly had succeeded in defeating Castle Trinity. For, as the young priest's power continued to grow, Dean Thobicus felt himself being pushed away from the light of Deneir. Once, Thobicus had commanded the most powerful clerical magic, but now even the simplest spell, like the one he had used to dispatch poor Belago, came hard to his thin lips.
He turned back to the room to see Bron Turman staring at him skeptically.
"Very well," Thobicus conceded. Tell Baccio I will meet him this eveningЧbut I maintain that his army should hold a defensive posture and not go traipsing through the mountains!"
Bron Turman was satisfied with that. "But you believe that Cadderly and his friends have succeeded," he said slyly.
Thobicus did not respond.
"You believe that the threat to the library is no more," Bron Turman stated. The burly Oghman headmaster smiled, a wistful look in his large gray eyes. "At least, you believe that one threat to the library is no more." he added.
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Thobicus steeled his gaze, his crow's-feet coming together to form one large crease at the side of each orb. "This does not concern you," he quietly warned.
Bron Turman bowed, respecting the words. "That does not mean that I do not understand," he said. "Vicero Belago was a fine alchemist."
"Bron Turman..."
The headmaster held up a submissive hand. "I am no friend of Cadderly's," he said. "Neither am I a young man. I have seen the intrigue of power struggles within both our sects."
Thobicus pursed his thin lips and seemed on the verge of explosion, and Bron Turman took that as a sign that he should be leaving. He gave another quick bow and was gone from the room.
Dean Thobicus rocked back in his chair and pivoted about to face the window. He couldn't rationally call Turman on the outwardly treasonous words, for the man's reasoning was undeniably true. Thobicus had been alive for more than seven decades; Cadderly for just over two, yet, for some reason that the old bureaucrat could not understand, Cadderly-had found particular favor with Deneir. But the dean had come to his power painstakingly, at great personal sacrifice and at the cost of many years of almost reclusive study. He was not about to give up his position. He would purge the library of Cadderly's open allies and strengthen his hold on the order. Headmaster Avery Schell, Cadderly's mentor and surrogate father, and Pertelope, who had been like Cadderly's mother, were both dead now, and Belago would soon be gone.
No, Thobicus would not give up his position.
Not without a fight.
The Promise of Salvation
Kierkan Rufo wiped the stubborn mud from his boots and breeches, and muttered quiet curses to himself, as he always did. He was an outcast, marked by an ugly blue-and-red brand of an unlit candle above a closed eye, which lay on the middle of his forehead.
"Bene tellemara" whispered Druzil. A bat-winged, dog-faced, scaly creature barely two feet tall, the imp packed more malicious evil into that tiny frame than the worst of humankind's tyrants,
"What did you say?" Rufo snapped. He glared down at his otherworldly companion. The two had been together for the last half of the winter, and neither much liked the other. Their enmity had begun in Shilmista Forest, west of the Snowflake Mountains, when Druzil had threat-
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ened and coerced Rufo into serving his wicked masters, the leaders of Castle TrinityЧwhen Druzil had precipitated Kierkan Rufo's fall from the order of Deneir.
Druzil looked curiously at the man and squinted from the flickering light of the torch Rufo held. Rufo was over six feet tall, but bone-skinny. He always stood at an angle, tilted to the side, and that made him, or the world behind him, seem strangely incongruent. Druzil, who had spent the last few months wandering through the Snowflakes, thought Rufo resembled a tree on a steep mountainside. The imp snickered, drawing another glare from the perpetually scowling Rufo.
The imp continued to stare, trying hard to view the man in a new light. With his stringy black hair matted to his head, those penetrating eyesЧblack dots on a pale faceЧand that unusual stance, Rufo could be imposing. He kept his hair parted in the middle now, not on the side as it had always been, for Rufo could not, on pain of death, cover that horrid brand, the mark that had forced him to be a recluse, the mark that made every person shun him when they saw him coming down the road.
"What are you looking at?" Rufo demanded.
"Bene tellemara" Druzil rasped again in the language of the lower planes. It was a profound insult to Rufo's intelligence. To Druzil, schooled in chaos and evil, all humans seemed fumbling things, too clouded by emotions to be effective at anything. And this one, Rufo, was more bumbling than most. However, Aballister, Druzil's wizard master, was dead now, killed by Cadderly, his son, the same priest who had branded Rufo. And Dori-gen, Aballister's second, had been captured, or had gone over to Cadderly's side. That left Druzil wandering alone on the Material Plane. With his innate powers, and no wizards binding him to service, the imp might have
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found his way back to the lower planes, but Druzil didn't want thatЧnot yet. For, on this plane, in the dungeons of this very building, rested Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the chaos curse, among the most potent and wicked concoctions ever brewed. Druzil wanted it back, and meant to get it with the help of Rufo, his stooge.
"I know what you are saying," Rufo lied, then he mimicked "Bene tellemara" back at Druzil.
Druzil smirked at him, showing clearly that the imp really didn't care if Rufo knew the meaning or not.
Rufo looked back at the muddy tunnel that had gotten them under the cellar of the Edificant Library.
"Well," he said impatiently, "we have come this far. Lead on and let us be out of this wretched place."
Druzil looked at him skeptically. For all the talking the imp had done over the last few weeks, Rufo still did not understand. Be out of this place? Druzil thought. Rufo had missed the whole point. They would soon have the chaos curse in their hands; why would they then want to leave?
Druzil nodded and led on, figuring that he could do little to enlighten the stupid human. Rufo simply did not understand the power of Tuanta Quiro Miancay. He had once been caught in its throesЧall the library had, and nearly been brought downЧyet, the ignorant human still did not understand.
That was the way with humans, Druzil decided. He would have to take Rufo by the hand and lead him to power, as he had led Rufo across the fields west of Car-radoon and back into the mountains. Druzil had lured Rufo back to the library, where the branded man did not want to go, with false promises that the potion locked in these dungeons would remove his brand.
They went through several long, damp chambers,
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past rotting casks and crates from days long ago when the library was a much smaller place, and mostly underground, when these areas had been used for storage. Druzil hadn't been here in a while, not since before the battle for Castle Trinity, before the war in Shilmista Forest. Not since Barjin, the evil priest, ha'd been killed ... by Cadderly.
"Bene telletnaral" the imp rasped, frustrated by the thought of the powerful young cleric.
"I grow tired of your insults," Rufo began to protest.
"Shut up," Druzil snapped back at him, too consumed by thoughts of the young priest to bother with Rufo. Cadderly, young and lucky Cadderly: the bane of Druzil's ambitions, the one who always seemed to be in the way.
Druzil kept complaining, scraping and slapping his wide, clawed feet on the stone floor noisily. He pushed through a door, went down a long corridor, and pushed open another.
Then Druzil stopped, and ended, too, his muttering. They had come to a small room, the room where Barjin had fallen.
Rufo pinched his nose and turned away, for the room smelled of death and decay. Druzil took a deep breath and felt positively at home.
There could be no doubt that a fierce struggle had occurred in here. Along the wall to Rufo and Druzil's right was an overturned brazier, the remains of charcoal blocks and incense scattered among its ashes. There, too, were the burned wrappings of an undead monster, a mummy. Most of the thing had been consumed by the flames, but its wrapped skull remained, showing blackened bone with tattered pieces of rags about it.
Beyond the brazier, near the base of the wall and along the floor, was a crimson stain, all that remained as
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testimony to Barjin's death. Barjin had been propped against that very spot when Cadderly had accidentally hit him with an explosive dart, blasting a hole through his chest and back.