"Ed Greenwood - Forgotten Realms - Elminster 4 - Elminster In Hell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

chattered, his hair quivered on end, and the hoarse beginnings of a scream froze in his throat. Caught in
its grip, Elminster of Shadowdale could not have moved even a finger. Fires charred him black. Surging,
searing force flung his arms and legs rigid into a scorched star, and then threw him across the sky.
When he could see again, tiny lightings streamed from his nose. The rift was a bright, distant fire in
the red sky. Its flames were suddenly blotted out by a black and grinning form, horn-headed and
bright-eyed, racing through the air with claws outstretched to rend stricken wizards.
"Tharguth," Elminster murmured, recalling an old grimoire's name for such devils-abishai, these were,
for he saw a second and third swooping along in the wake of the first.
Then there was no more time to think: the abishai rushed at him tike a striking hammer.
 It tore at the air eagerly with its claws as it came, its poisonous tail curled up beneath it to stab if
need be. Elminster looked into the devil's exulting eyes. He felt a rash of warmth and the vinegarlike tang
of its hide as its jaws gaped wide. Its head turned on an angle to bite out his throat. He fed it fire, searing
claws and head alike to nothingness in an instant and letting it tumble away into the rocky darkness
below.
The second abishai was coming too fast to veer; El twisted away from one sky-raking claw and
sent a tiny blue-white bolt of his magic into the howling mouth of the third winged devil. Its head
exploded. Its racing body arched back and clawed the air in silent, spasmodic agony as it rushed past.
A flight spell was one of the few left to the Old Mage; fearful the magic roiling within him might twist
and shatter it. He cast it with infinite care. Another tiny tithe of power gave him greater speed than the
spell alone could furnish He needed to get back to the rift, swiftly.
He did not need to look back or hear the snarls of rage to know that the second abishai had turned
to come after him. The sky was full of tharguth now-black and green and even the larger, more cruel red
abishai. Their eyes blazed like pairs of ruby flames as they rase to hunt him. Their cries of rage and glee
rose into a roar that overtopped the thunder of the rent, it grew larger... and largerтАж
Elminster Aumar was not the least of Mystra's Chosen, but neither was he a great and vigorous
creature of battle. Like a tiny blue-white star, he raced across the sky of Avernus.
Dark red dragons glided now among the devils, biting and pouncing like great cats, preying hungrily
on this flock of flying food. Little spike-studded gargoyle-devils, spinagons, were in the sky, too, darting
and ducking aside from the tharguth. Looking back, El saw the abishai that pursued him gutted from belly
to throat by something winged and hungry. It flew away almost fester than he could turn his head.
His gaze fell for a moment to the land below and its twisting ribbon of red that could only be a river
of blood. His attention flicked up again to the swift beat of those elusive wings. The flying slayer was
slowing to a halt, standing on air to watch him. Their eyes met.
El found himself looking into the eyes of a lone devil beating feathered wings in the sky. She was
sleek and graceful and deadly, dusky-hued and more beautiful than any mortal woman; an erinyes,
doubtless a spy for a greater devil dwelling deeper in the Nine Hells.
My, but he was populate Avernus must furnish poor entertainment, for a lone human wizard to
attract such interest.
Weil, no. He set aside proud thoughts. It was undoubtedly the rift that was drawing the devils aloft.
El saw more bat wings tumbling helplessly across the sky, caught by more lightning bolts from the
torrents of force where world met world and clawed at each other
Another bolt rushed at him, and Elminster was ready. Spreading his hands, with magics crawling
between them in a blue-white chain, he plunged into its raging heart. With a wordless shout, he drank in
power until it rose hot and choking within him. He was forced to rear up out of its flow and into the ruby
sky again, gasping and trembling.
He'd been driven back only a little way this time, and his limbs were blazing bright with energies. In
the distance, winged devils tried to drink in the power of the bolt as he had done but plunged to their
dooms as the bolts consumed them in brief gouts of red flame.
A dragon saw him and wheeled from its sport of tearing apart tharguth and devouring them. It came
thundering down at him like a great wall of scaled flesh. It spat fire, the ravening flames that did so little to