"Robert Jordan - Conan 02 - The Invincible" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

Conan the Invincible
By Robert Jordan

Chapter I
The icy wind whipping through the brown, sheer-walled chasms of the Kezankian Mountains seemed
colder still around the bleak stone fortress that grew from the granite flank of a nameless mountain in the
heart of the range. Fierce hillmen who feared nothing rode miles out of their way to go around that dark
bastion, and made the sign of the horns to ward off evil at its mention.

Amanar the Necromancer made his way down a dim corridor that violated the very heartstone of the
mountain, followed by those no longer human. He was slender, this thaumaturge, and darkly handsome,
his black heard cropped close; but a vaguely serpentlike streak of white meandered through his short
hair, and the red flecks that danced in his eyes drew the gaze, and the will, of anyone foolish enough to
look deeply. His henchmen looked like ordinary men, at first glance and from a distance, but their faces
were vaguely pointed, their eyes glinted red beneath ridged helmets, and their skins bore reptilian scales.
The fingers of the elongated hands that held their spears ended not in nails, but in claws. A curved tulwar
swung at the hip of every one except for hire who marched close behind Amanar. Sitha, Warden of the
S'tarra, Amanar's Saurian henchman, bore a great doubleedged ax. They came to tall doors set in the
stone, both doors and stone carved with serpents in endless arabesques.

"Sitha," Amanar said, and passed through the doors without pausing.

The reptiloid warden followed close behind, closing the massive doors after his master, but Amanar
barely noticed. He spared not a glance for the naked captives, a man and a woman, bound hand and
foot, who lay gagged at one side of the column-circled room. The mosaicked floor bore the likeness of a
golden serpent, surrounded by what might have been the rays of the sun. The mage's black robe was
wound about with a pair of entwined golden serpents, their heads finally coming over his shoulders to rest
on his chest. The eyes of the embroidered serpents glittered with what would not possibly be life. He
Spoke.

"The sacrifice, Sitha."

The prisoners writhed in a frenzy to break their bonds, but the scaled henchman, muscles bulging like a
blacksmith's, handled the man easily. In minutes the captive was spreadeagled atop a block of
red-streaked black marble. A trough around the rim of the dark altar led to a spout above a large golden
bowl. Sitha ripped the gag away and stepped back.

The bound man, a pale-skinned Ophirian, worked his mouth and spat. "Whoever you are, you'll get
naught from me, spawn of the outer dark! I'll not beg! Do you hear? No plea will crack my teeth, dog! I
will not...."

Amanar heard nothing. He felt beneath his robe for the amulet, a golden serpent in the clutches of a silver
hawk. That protected him, that and other things he had done, yet each time there was the realization of
the power he faced. And controlled.

Those fools of Stygia, those who called themselves mages of the Black Ring, had so condescendingly
allowed him to study at their feet, confident of his worshipful admiration. Until it was too late, none of
them knew the contempt that festered in his heart. They prated of their power in the service of Set, Lord
of the Dark, yet no man of them dared so much as lay a finger on the dread Book of Typhon. But he had
dared.