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

command. Only then did he at last allow the image to form in his mind of the distant object of his intention.
Some forty miles away, the royal castle of Balmoral lay quiet under a clear, frosty sprinkling of November
stars. With the Queen and Royal Family back in London for the winter, the Scots Guards in charge of
grounds security went about their appointed late-night rounds with the relaxed efficiency of men who had no
reason to expect any serious trouble but were nonetheless prepared for it - in battledress and black berets for
night patrol, and armed with the latest Enfield "Bull Pup" rifles.
Corporal Archie Buchannan had just completed his hourly circuit of the south lawn and was headed for his
post by the south door, shifting the weight of his rifle on its shoulder sling, when a flicker of movement in the
sky overhead made him glance up. He stopped short in his tracks, his brow furrowing sharply in surprise and
astonishment.
A dense bank of black cloud was sweeping down on the castle out of the west, moving faster than any storm
Archie had ever seen before. Its curdled vapors writhed and boiled like pitch in a cauldron, stirred by erratic
pulses of sheet-lightning, so that within the span of only a few heartbeats, the clouds had blotted out half the
stars in the sky.
"What the de'il?" Archie murmured under his breath.
A low growl of thunder rolled hollowly across the lawn, accompanied by a more defined crackle of lightning
within the roiling clouds. The brief flare picked out two more figures in battledress uniform as they hurried out
onto the grass from the shadows of the building, eyes turned skyward under uniform berets.
"Oi! Archie! D'ye see that?" one of them yelled. "Where did all these clouds come from?"
Before Archie could venture a response, an eye-searing bolt of bright-white lightning ripped the sky above the
castle roof, accompanied by a deafening crack of thunder. The lightning bolt struck the north turret of the
great square tower with the force of a mortar round, hurling stones and roof slates up and outward in a blazing
fountain of destruction.
The concussion flung Archie to the ground. As he frantically scrambled for cover underneath the nearest
hedge, trying to protect his head from the debris already beginning to rain down, he could only think that it
must have been a bomb, regardless of what his own senses told him. Above the ringing in his ears, he
started to hear the intermittent clangor of security alarms going off. As the patter of falling debris subsided, an
attendant clamor of shouts began to rise from other parts of the castle grounds, along with the thud of booted
feet approaching.
Cautiously Archie raised his head to look around, squinting against the sudden glare of security lights fitfully
coming on all around the castle and grounds.
"Archie? Are ye all right, man?" said a voice close beside him, as a hand roughly grasped his shoulder.
"Aye, just let me catch my breath," Archie muttered, rolling over to see the smudged faces of two of his
colleagues, both looking slightly wild-eyed and dishevelled.
"Jesus, what happened?" demanded the one who had shaken him, as his larger partner shifted his grip on his
rifle and looked around uneasily. "It sounded like a bloody bomb!"
Archie shook his head and let the other man help him sit up, testing gingerly for injuries beyond the bruises
he knew were inevitable. Ears still ringing, he pulled himself stiffly to his feet, then gaped as he gazed across
the lawn in the direction of the baronial tower.
Where the north turret had stood but minutes earlier, the bomb - or lightning strike - had left only a burning
stump of charred masonry.
Forty miles away, on the other side of the mountains, the old man in white exhaled with a long-drawn sigh of
satisfaction and savored his moment of triumph. Outside confirmation would have to wait until morning, when
the news services undoubtedly would be full of it, but he had no doubt that his aim had been successful.
Slowly he reached to his throat, removing the ancient tore with both hands and carefully laying it back atop
the stack of parchments before him. Then he let his arms sink to his sides, bowing his head in deep
obeisance as he acknowledged the Power that had delivered the lightning into his hands. His twelve acolytes
bowed with him, their shadows blurring together as they touched their brows to the floor.
But it was only outwardly a gesture of humility. A silence born of dark exultation reigned in the room as the
acolytes straightened and then bent again, this time in homage to him.