"Katherine Kurtz - Adept 02 - The Lodge of the Lynx" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Mrs. Edith Rendle, for her advice on Scots law and Scottish legal procedure;
Dr. Ernan J. Gallagher, for general medical advice, and Dr. A.V.M. Davidson, for her advice on Scottish
medical facilities and practice;
Scott MacMillan, for his expertise on weapons, police procedures, and interesting motor vehicles;
Peter Morwood, for military advice, especially on the SAS;
Bob Harris, for general aid, comfort, and research assistance;
And once again, to the St. Andrews branch of the Scottish Tourist Information Bureau, especially Rhona
McKay, for their tireless efforts in running down local information not to be found in the guidebooks.
prologue

A brooding stillness lay upon the chill night air. High above the tower's conical roof, the old man could feel the
energy beginning to gather - a faint electrical prickle that stirred the hackles at the back of the neck and
crawled on the tiny hairs of bare arms like invisible insects. At first it seemed little more than a tense,
ongoing flicker in the silence, skittish as a flight of hunting bats. Then the pulses gathered strength, growing
more potent with each passing moment. Before long, the energy was beating about the roof slates like some
huge, winged predator struggling to break free from the restraint of its jesses - held only by the strength of will
of the one who had summoned it.
Even to undertake such a summoning was both difficult and dangerous. To direct the power thus summoned
required exquisite control, acquired only through long years of study and unspeakable sacrifice. The merest
wavering of will, the slightest distraction, might release the tight-leashed energy prematurely, to rebound with
disastrous consequences upon the very tower where the summoner sat surrounded by his chosen Twelve.
But the venerable Head-Master who ruled the tower was one well-accustomed to taking calculated risks.
He had chosen both the venue and his acolytes with care. The chamber from which they worked occupied the
entire topmost floor of the tower - a massive, twelve-sided structure that dominated the castellated manor
house of which it was a part. Bleak and remote among the cataracts and crags of Scotland's Cairngorm
Mountains, the house had been built in Victorian times upon the foundations of an Iron Age broch, with the
tower and even parts of the house incorporating undressed stones from the earlier structure.
Nowhere were these primitive origins more apparent than in the topmost tower chamber, whose thick, nearly
windowless walls had been plastered starkly white, the ceiling above divided like a wheel by converging
beams of black oak. Though the house and the floors below were wired for electricity, gaslight remained this
room's sole source of illumination. Gas jets hissed behind shades of crimson glass in brass sconces at the
room's four quarters, dispersing the fitful yellowish glow and casting only soft, vague shadows before the
twelve white-robed figures seated cross-legged around the room's perimeter.
No shadows at all intruded upon the center of the room, with its mound of scarlet cushions. From there the
white-clad Master directed the Work, palms upturned upon splayed knees, hairless head bowed, eyes closed
in a gaunt, wizened face that resembled a mummified skull.
Before him on a mat of black ram skin lay a stacked heap of parchment, the pages yellow and brittle with
age. And weighting the stack of parchments, its arc as wide as the span of a man's spread hand, was the
object of the old man's concentration - a Celtic tore wrought of black meteoric iron. Its crafting was of the
same distant age as the broch, with geometric knots and flowing zoomorphs cunningly inlaid with fluid
traceries of silver. Smoky cairngorms smouldered baleful as serpents' eyes among the interlocking shapes
and whorls.
Focusing upon its ancient energies, the old man extended his hands over the tore like a man warming his
hands at a fire, feeling its potential danger prickling beneath his hands, only barely contained by the dark
hallowing he had imposed upon it. Even with his eyes closed, he could sense its potent magnetic influence
acting upon the elemental energies building outside the tower, straining to be away.
And soon would be away. The moment was nearly at hand. Hardening his intent for the ultimate exercise of
his will, the old man lifted the tore in palsied hands and slipped it around his scrawny neck. The kiss of the
cold metal against his throat plunged him even deeper into trance as he felt the ancient energies mesh with
his own, and he flung back his head and raised blue-veined arms in a gesture both of invocation and