"Simon Hawke - Wizard 5 - The Samurai Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

the demand and continue to insure the highest standards of
thaumagenetic craftsmanship.
And, not long after that, the backlog of orders was so great,
despite the lofty prices, that Kanno closed his shop to orders from
the publicтАФ-though he left it open as a gallery where those who
could not afford his magenes could at least come in to view
themтАФand started working only on select commissions.
In the meantime, after his shop closed for the day and his
apprentices had left, Kanno worked diligently, late into the night,
pursuing his true callingтАФthe art of necromancy.
Beneath his shop, in a long abandoned and forgotten excavation,
was a small underground mall that dated back to the days just
prior to the Collapse. The site on which his shop now stood had once
been an entrance to an underground arcade of exclusive boutiques,
galleries, coffee shops, and hostess bars. After careful research
through old city records that no one ever bothered to examine
anymore, he chose the site for his shop precisely for that reason.
Years ago, the subterranean mall had been completely sealed off,
buried and forgotten beneath new construction, but using his
magical skills, Kanno had broken through to it. The magically
warded and camouflaged entrance was now located in the basement
of his shop and not even his apprentices, who passed by it several
times a day, suspected its existence. Each night, after he locked the
doors of his shop, Kanno descended into his secret necromantic
enclave, to practice the black arts.
Necromancy, Kanno felt, was the pinnacle of the sorcererтАЩs art.
Dangerous, demanding, forbidden, and intoxicating. It demanded
the ultimate in skill and concentration on the part of the
necromancer, whose own life hung in the balance with each and
every spell attempted. But, unlike the white magic of the
thaumaturge, black magic was exponential in its rewards. White
magic could never increase the power of the sorcerer the way that
necromancy could. It was both intensely fulfilling and intensely
addictive.
NecromancyтАФliterally, the sorcery of deathтАФhad a price, just as
thaumaturgy did. Magic had its own immutable laws of
metaphysics. Matter and energy could not limply be created out of
nothing. The energy, the fuel, had to come from somewhere. To the
white magician or the thaumaturge, the energy came most
frequently from his or her own life force. On occasion, and only
under the strictest licensing and observation of the codes
administered by local Bureaus of Thaumaturgy and overseen by the
International Thaumaturgical Commission, a thaumaturge could
draw upon the life force of carefully screened volunteers, but only in
the same way as blood could be taken from a donorтАФa little at a
time and under carefully controlled conditions, allowing for natural
replenishment. But in most cases, white sorcerers and wizards
drew on their own life force, which placed strict limitations on their
powers. The more demanding a spell, the greater the drain on a
magicianтАЩs life force, for which reason magic-users such as pilot