"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 3 - Courage Of Falcons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

Flesh and life,
Even unto my own death.
I freely offer my gift,
And in his name accept my offer.
Vodor Imrish, hear me."
She did not draw her own blood, nor scrape her skin. She had no need of that. Their bodies touchedтАФhers strong and whole, Dughall's weak and worn. She would not limit her offering or mark off with a circle that which she would give and that which she would hold back. Whatever Vodor Imrish chose to take from her to give to Dughall, he could take.
She knew in offering that she might dieтАФthat Dughall, so near death, might take from her more than she could give and survive. He might absorb her. But Dughall knew what she did not, and he could win for them where she could not. If she died, she would do so fighting to destroy the Dragons and to save Hasmal, and that would be enough. If she died, her soul would go on, and she would someday find Hasmal again. And meanwhile, her Hasmal would live.
She felt the fire flow into her veins, Matrin's magic stirred by the godtouch, and she knew that Vodor Imrish had heard her. She rejoiced for just an instant, for until that moment he had been deaf to all prayers and all entreaties. Then, as the fire filled her, it burned through her and emptied her. Her world grew dark and she heard a rushing in her ears. Her mouth grew dry, her body heavy, and a giant weight pressed down on her, making each breath a fight.
She knew she was falling, but could not stop herself. Her soul tugged at the moorings of her flesh, called by the wind of approaching death. She did not fight that wind, but at the last instant, when she was sure she would leave her body behind, she felt a surge of en-
ergy flow into her, binding her soul tightly to her cage of skin and bones. She was too weak to moveтАФtoo weak even to open her eyesтАФ but she lived, and knew she would live yet a little longer. Her last coherent thought was a prayer: that Dughall had received from her enough to do what he needed; that Hasmal could hold on until he did it.
Chapter
2
Dughall Draclas came roaring out of unconsciousness like a man trapped underwater who at the last possible instant breaks free from his trap and bursts to the surface. He lunged to his feet, gasping, his eyes open but for an instant unfocused.
His body burst with uncontainable energy. He felt as if he could fly, as if he could run from one edge of the known world to the other without his feet ever touching the ground, as if he could rebuild the Glass Towers single-handed. He had a hunger that he hadn't felt so overwhelmingly in years; he desired sex with the obsessive full-body yearning of a young man.
He stared around him at blurred bright colors and at shapes that he could not force to resolve into anything meaningful. The voices in his ears were clear and sharp, startlingly loud, full of nuances and depths but lacking meaning. Smells filled his nostrils, pungent and heady and rich. It was all new, all wondrous, all incomprehensible but glorious.
I've been reborn, he thought. Have died, have come into the world in a new body. I am once again a squalling infant, and in a few moments or a few days I'll forget that I am Dughall Draclas. . . .
Sound was the first thing to resolve into comprehensible patterns,
the first thing to shatter his illusion. "... don't know whether she's going to survive the shock."
"What about him? He looks healthy as peasant hell." "Dughall? Can you hear us? Can you see us?" "Nothing. She's paid a terrible price for nothing." Sight resolved next. He was in a tent. . . no. He was in the tent, where he and Hasmal had been pulling the souls out of Dragons. He was standing up, weaving back and forth, with a soldier at either side keeping him from falling on his face. He was looking downтАФJaim stared up at him, Yanth and the healer Namele were crouched over a white-haired woman that he did not recognize.
He licked his lips, and they felt. . . different. Thicker, firmer, moister. He still felt that wondrous energy, that illusion of incredible strength, that inescapable sexual fire. "What. . . happened?" he asked, and wondered at the new depth of his voice, at the richness and the range. At the clarity of the sound when he spoke, at the presence of soft sounds he hadn't heard in years. Decades.
A relieved smile flashed across Jaim's face. "Dughall? You with us?"
Dughall nodded. "Yes."
"No time for explanations, then. A Dragon pulled Hasmal physically through the connection between them. He's torturing him now. If you can't pull the Dragon's soul from his body, he's going to kill Hasmal. You don't have much time; Hasmal looks bad."
Yanth and the healer dragged the old woman out of the way, and Dughall dropped to his knees beside Jaim. He stared into the viewing glass Jaim indicated and saw quick flashes of Hasmal, of a knife, of blood and horror. He heard a screamтАФwhisper-soft through the view-ing-glass connection but no less chilling for its lack of volumeтАФand heard a gentle, soothing voice say, "More. Or I'll cut out a lung, dear fellow, and pull it out through your back. You really only need one, you know."
Jaim said, "Hasmal managed to plant a talisman on the bastard only a few moments ago. It's been going on like this ever since. He's
been lyingтАФmaking up all sorts of wild stories and talking as fast as he can. But the snake-futtering whoreson keeps cutting him anyway." Jaim's voice sounded tight and dry in his throat.
"I'll get him," Dughall said. "I'll stop this."
For the moment he didn't question his strength. He accepted it, and with it the miracle that had brought him back from sharply remembered pain and utter exhaustion. Jaim handed him a featureless gold ring attached to a tripod of twisted silver wire; this would become a tiny Mirror of SoulsтАФa house and a prison for the soul of the Dragon who tortured Hasmal. He set it on the rug directly in front of him and with a quick swipe of his index finger scraped a bit of skin from the inside of his cheek.
He'd refined his technique since the first time he'd snatched a Dragon soul from its captive body, but the process was still fraught with danger. He glanced at the guards. "Have them watch me," he said to Yanth. "If you have any reason to think the Dragon has won and has pushed my soul into the ring, give them a signal. They're to kill this body without question."
Jaim paled. "How can I know?"
Dughall shrugged. "You might not. You might make a mistake. But, Jaim, you listen to me. Better that you make a mistake and kill me by accident than that you accidentally let a Dragon live. You understand?"
The young man looked at him with frightened eyes and nodded slowly.
Hasmal screamed again.
"I have to do this," Dughall said. "What's the Dragon's name?"
Jaim said, "Hasmal has called him Dafril."
Dughall nodded. "Dafril." He crouched over the tiny tripod. He rested his hands on the viewing glass that connected to Dafril's soul, and willed his soul to link through that ethereal connection to the monster at the other end. When, after a moment, he felt the hot darkness of that evil other, he concentrated all his will on the band of gold and said:
"Follow my soul, Vodor Imrish, To the Dragon soul of Dafril, To the usurper of a body not his own, And from this body expel the intruder. Bring no harm to the intruder, The Dragon Dafril.
Instead, give his soul safe house and shelter Within the unbroken circle before meтАФ Unbroken that it may guard Dafril's immortality, and Protect the essence of his life and mind, While safely reuniting the body and soul Of him whom Dafril has wronged. I offer my fleshтАФall that I have given And all that you will takeтАФ Freely and with clear conscience, As I do no wrong, But reverse a wrong done."
White-hot magical fire burned through him once more, searing the anchor that held his soul to his own body, searing the tenuous connection between him and the Dragon; and within the blink of an eye it enveloped the Dragon's soul.
The fire pulsed and drew, and he felt first astonishment and then rage from Dafril. Because Dafril's soul could have no permanent anchor in the body he had stolen, the fire ripped him loose and pulled him toward Dughall as fast as light raced through a keyhole. Dughall braced and the enemy soul was upon him in the same instant; and this enemy held power he had never experienced before.
Dafril's soul dug into his mind and burrowed into his flesh seeking purchase; the Dragon fought with a thousand years of experience and
cleverness to pry Dughall from his body and force Dughall's soul into the eternal prison of the ring. Dughall strengthened his connections with his own flesh. He felt he was fighting an octopusтАФno sooner had
he shored up one weak spot than Dafril had wedged a tentacle into another and dug in. Every self-doubt, every half-remembered shame, every wrong he'd ever done anyone became a weak point that the Dragon exploited.
He caught brief thoughts and images from his enemy's mind; he discovered he was fighting the head of the Dragons. Dafril was the monster who had conceived the immortality engine a thousand years before, and had planned out and designed the Mirror of Souls. This was the very monster who, when the Wizards' War turned in favor of the Falcons, had gathered his faithful followers and locked all of them into the Mirror of Souls, priming it to bring them back when the world was ripe for their return. This was the master.
Dafril reached into his mind with a will forged of iron, and drove commands like knives into his soul. Give in. Give up. Surrender.
Dughall gathered his strength and channeled his purpose and determination. He visualized himself as the core of a sun, burning everything that was not him, expanding with unstoppable power, filling all the cracks and crevices, all the weaknesses and shames and uncertainties of his existence with the pure fire of his life. He accepted his self-doubt and admitted his imperfections, and when he did, he no longer questioned his worthiness to exist.
At the moment that Dughall accepted himself as he was, Dafril lost his hold. His soul erupted from the center of Dughall's chest in a fiery river that poured into the center of the ring. The light began to spiral around the rim, and the room filled for an instant with a deafening wall of soundтАФa wail of terror and rage so loud Dughall felt it more than he heard it. Fog poured out from the center of the fire, white and dense and ice-cold. And for just an instant, Dughall choked on the stink of rot and honeysuckle.
Then the air cleared and quiet returned.
Before him, pure golden light rose upward through the center of the tiny tripod and swirled into the ring, spiraling slowly. It had become the Mirror of DafrilтАФa thing of beauty with a heart of evil.
Dughall shuddered and looked up at Jaim. "I beat him," he said quietly. "I beat that monster. Hasmal should be safe now."