"Mercedes Lackey - Obsidian 02 - To Light A Candle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

The Other-Kellen smiled triumphantly and relaxed, certain of its victory.

"But I'm not going to!" Kellen shouted.

He brought the keystone down - hard - on the doppelganger's hands. It howled and recoiled as if it
had been burned, jerking its hands back from the point of the obelisk.

And in that moment it, ... changed.

The Other-Kellen was gone. In its place stood a Demon.

It - she! - towered over Kellen, her wings spread wide. He caught a confused glimpse of blood-red
skin, of horns and claws, but she was barely there for an instant, for in the moment that the Demon
had released her hold on the obelisk, Kellen slammed the keystone down over the tip of the stone.

The instant the keystone touched the obelisk, the Demon howled in fury and vanished, her cheated
rage a whiplash across his senses. For a moment he was blind and deaf in a paroxysm of pain. He
cringed, but kept his hands on the stone.

They had not counted on his experience with being lied to. And perhaps that was the greatest
weapon Lycaelon Tavadon had given to him.

I know a lie when I hear it, you bastards! His father had lied to him so smoothly, so convincingly,
and so often, that Kellen had learned every guise that a lie could wear.

Kellen trembled all over, realizing in that moment how close the Demon had come to winning. But it
hadn't.

Now it was up to him. Despite everything he had already gone through, the hardest part was still
to come. Hardest - and yet, in its way, the easiest. All he had to do was surrender - surrender his
will, surrender his power, and put it all in the service of something far outside himself.

He took a deep breath and reached down into the keystone with his Wildmage senses, touching
the power waiting within. The power leaped toward him eagerly, but Kellen knew that he was not
to be its destination. Gently he turned it toward the obelisk.

He felt the obelisk's resistance, and pushed harder, adding the last of his strength and all of his will
to the keystone's power, forcing the link into being.

One by one, the obelisk's defenses gave way. Kellen felt the triggering force begin to rush through
him and into the obelisk. He kept his palms pressed against the keystone's sides; without him to
maintain the link, the spell would be broken before the Barrier was breached. And all of it - the
journey, the others' sacrifice - would all have been for nothing.

Then, breakthrough.

And his body spasmed, convulsed, his mouth going open in a silent scream.

This was worse than anything he could have imagined. He felt as if he were being struck by bolt
after bolt of lightning, a torrent of energy that somehow went on and on and on, searing its way