"Forgotten Realms - Shandril's Saga 01 - Spellfire (2002) (Greenwood, Ed)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forgotten Realms)

Then into her mind came Gorstag's kind, weathered face, smiling at her. Gorstag must have been in worse straits once or twice, and he was still around to tell the tales. ...
Again Shandril turned to the lit casket. Swallowing the dry lump in her throat, she strode forward and stared at the glow and at the stone within it. There was no flickering in the radiance, no change, as she laid a hand on the lid.
Nothing happened. She was not harmed. Silence reigned. Shandril took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed. Still nothing happened. The stone lid was massive and old and did not move. Steeling herself, Shandril crouched beside the eerily glowing casket and put her shoulder to the lid, feeling nothing as the radiance played about her. Then, snarling with the effort, she gathered all her strength into a heave, bare feet slipping as she drove the lid sideways. It scraped
ED GREENWOOD
and shifted, and she caught herself before her arm or head could dip into the open tomb.
She looked in. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Bones ... yellow to brown, scattered about inside the cold, black box. A human skull, a jawbone elsewhere. Peering carefully into the darker corners, Shandril made sure that there was nothing within but bones. She sighed, looking at the tumbled mess of bones. Someone had obviously ransacked this casket already; any weapons or things of value must have long ago been carried away. Why then the radiance?
Shandril stood in the cold, wondering who lay buried hereЧor rather, lay uncoveredЧbones scattered like so many rotten twigs on the forest floor. Idly she looked for certain bones in the tangle. There, a thigh bone ... he (for some reason she thought of the pour soul as a he) must have been tall. . .. And then she noticed something odd.
There were three skeletal arms in the casket.
Just the one skull, and... yes, only bones enough, give or take a few, for one body. One body with three arms? She peered at those arms, one crumbling into separate bones, another almost intact, strips of withered sinew still clinging to the wrist and holding all together. And a third that was larger.... Curious, she reached into the tomb and touched the hand that did not belong.
Idiot/ she thought, too late, the bones cold under her fingertips. What have you done? She froze, waiting for some magical doom to befall her, or the old bones to take her rash hand in a bony grasp, or a stone block to fall from the ceilingЧsomething!
But nothing happened. Shandril peered around the cavern warily, and then shrugged and lifted out the skeletal arm. It dangled limply at the wrist. Small fingerbones dropped off into the casket as she raised the arm into better light.
Then she saw. Faint scratches caught the light along the armbone she heldЧwriting of some sort. Shandril peered at it closely for the first time, wrinkling her nose in anticipation of a rotting smell that was not there as she brought the bones close to her face. The writing seemed to be only a single word. But why would someone scratch a word on a
╗S<5*
SPELLFIRE
bone, then leave it here? What did it all mean?
Squinting, Shandril made out the word. "Aergatha," she mumbled aloud.
Suddenly, she was no longer in the cavern. The bones cold in her hand, she stood somewhere dimly lit and smelling of earth. She could feel cold air moving against her face. Shandril barely had time to scream as cold claws reached for her.
Nairn, the mage's apprentice, swung his staff desperately, white with fear. The skull-like faces of the two bone devils he faced grinned at him as he backed away, trying to keep their hooks at bay and to flee from Myth Drannor as fast as he could. The devils were making horrible, throaty chuckling noises, tremendously entertained by his struggles. Thunder rolled overhead, and it was growing dark here under the trees.
Narm backed away desperately. Thrice they had tried to catch him between them, and only desperate leaps and acrobatics had saved him. By turns they would fade into invisibility, and he would swing wildly at the apparently empty air, hoping to deflect an unseen bone hook swinging for his throat or groin. Once, his staff did crash into something, but the devil seemed completely unaffected when it reappeared, grinning, just beyond his reach.
Twice now he had been wounded, and he was nearly blind with sweat. Magic as feeble as his own was useless against these creatures, even if he had been allowed the time necessary to cast anything. Magic had not saved Marimmar.
Narm had watched the pompous mage be overwhelmed after a few spectacular spells, then torn slowly apart with those bone hooksЧthe same bloody weapons that even now were tormenting the two screaming ponies. These two devils were only playing with him. The elf and his lady had given fair warning, and Marimmar had scoffed. Now the Mage Most Magnificent was dead, horribly dead. One mistake, only one, and now it was too late.
Suddenly Marimmar's severed head, dripping blood, eyes lolling in different directions, appeared before him in mid-
Х 57*
ED GREENWOOD
air. Narm screamed as Marimmar's rolling eyes focused on him. The mouth opened in a ghastly, bloody smile, and the head moved toward him. Frantic, Narm swung his staff.
The wood cut empty air. The head was gone, gone as if it had never been there. Illusion, Narm realized in helpless anger, as the hissing laughter of the bone devils rose around him.
Around him! They had gotten on both sides of him! Desperately, Narm turned and charged at one, swinging his staff wildly, trying to batter it down and win free. It danced aside, still hissing, its scorpionlike tail curling at him. Narm sprawled in the dry leaves and dirt, rolled over, heart pounding, and jumped up to his feet with staff flailing about.... He was dead, dead anyway ... he'd never escape ... if only he and Marimmar had turned back!
Then there was a blinding flash and the world exploded. Narm hit something, hard. Putting out a hand, he felt bark, felt his way up the tree, realizing that he still held his staff in the other hand.
Abruptly he heard a dry female voice close by. "He lives, Lanseril. If your bolt had been a couple of hands closer, mind..."
"Your turn, remember?" a light male voice replied, pointedly. Then both voices chuckled.
Narm blinked his dazzled eyes desperately. "Help," he managed to say, almost crying. "I cant see!"
"Can't think either, if you planned on storming Myth Drannor armed with nothing but a sapling," the female voice said to him and then hissed a word. Narm had the impression that something brightened, suddenly, to his left, and raced off in a spray of separate moving lights. But he could see nothing moreЧeverything looked like a white fog. A hand fell on his arm. He stiffened and swung his staff up.
"No, no," the male voice said in his ear. "If you hit me, I'll just leave you again, and the devils'U have you after all. How many companions had you?"
"J-just one," Narm replied, letting his arm fall. "Marimmar, theЧthe Mage Most Magnificent." Suddenly Narm burst into tears.
"I take it that he is no more," the female voice said gently. A
SPELLFIHE
hand took his sleeve, and then Narm was being led rapidly over the uneven leaves of the forest floor.
"Aye," the man said by Nairn's shoulder. "I've seen pieces of him. Mixed up with two horses. Can you ride, man?" Insistently he shook the sobbing Narm, who managed a violent nod, and then added, "Good. Up you go." Narm felt a stirrup, and then he was thrust up onto the back of a snorting, shifting horse. Narm clutched the horse's neck thankfully, and from one side heard the female hiss a word that he had heard earlier.
The male voice spoke again. "Tymora spit upon us, they're persistent! There's another flying at us now! Ride! fllistyl, lead him, will you?" Narm heard a sudden flutter of wings. He struck out at it wildly, blindly, with his staff.
"Mystra's strength!" the woman said, and Narm was jerked roughly to one side. "Strike down Lanseril? Idiot!" A small, strong hand clouted him under the jaw and then jerked the staff from his grasp. Narm heard it clatter against something off to his right.
"I beg pardon!" he said, clutching the horse's neck as it gathered speed. "I meant no harmЧdevils flying, he said!" "Aye, they are, and we're notЧas they say in CormyrЧout of the woods yet, either. It might help if you held the reins and let the horse breathe and turn its head by loosening your hold on its neck," she suggested flippantly. "I am Illistyl Elventree. Lanseril Snowmantle flies above us. He may forgive you by the time we reach Shadowdale."
"S-Shadowdale?" Narm asked, trying to remember what Marimmar had told him of the dales. He could see dark things moving... no, he was moving past them. Trees... his sight was coming back! "WhatЧhow did you save me? I wasЧwasЧ"
"Trapped, yes. Lanseril nearly caught you in the lightning he calledЧit wouldn't have been the first time. Can you see yet?"
Narm shook his head, trying to clear the white mist before his eyes. "Trees, yes, and the horse before meЧ" he turned his head toward her voiceЧ"but I fear I cannot see you, yet." His voice shook a little, and then steadied. "How came you to find me? ... AndЧandЧ"
950*
ED GREENWOOD
"We are Knights of Myth Drannor. Those who venture here for treasure often meet with us. The unlucky visitors such as yourself and this mageЧyour master, I take it-encounter the devils first."
"We... we met an elf first, good lady. Strongbow, he gave as his name, and he stood with a lady mage. They warned us back. My master was very angry. He was determined to find the magic that remains and so went around by another way. He isЧwasЧproud and willful, I fear/'
"He stands in large company both in life and death, then. You were apprentice to him?"
"Aye. I am but new come to the art, lady. My spells and cantrips are not yet of any great matter. They may never be, now." Narm sighed.