"Julian May - Trillium 2 - Blood Trillium" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

When we finally lofted into die air, he had die diree voors fly closely togedier, widi his own
mount at die center. In some miraculous fashion he softened die force of the windblast, and we
soared as if in calm weadier. When die birds tired, we landed upon die interior icecap as before
and sheltered in tents while die birds huddled around us. The same enchantment fended off die snow
and wind while we rested, and dien we took off once more. It took only six days to reach the
Kimilon diis time in spite of die incessant blizzards, and I arrived hale in body and resigned in
spirit.
The magician retrieved only a single diing from die lava-rock house: a dark coffer about die
lengdi of my body, diree handsbreadths wide and the same in depdi. It was made of some slick
material like black glass and had a silvery star widi many rays embossed upon die top. All jovial
now, widi his aura once again in check, Portolanus opened die box to show me dial it was empty.
"A simple thing, is it not, Oddling?" he asked me. "And yet it is my key to die conquest of die
world"тАФhe pulled from his fine jerkin a battered and blackened medallion on a chain, formed like
die same kind of starтАФ "just as this was die salvation of my life! There are powerful sorcerers in
die soudiern lands who would forfeit their souls' immortality in order to possess these two
diings, and kings and queens who would gladly give up dieir
crowns for them. But diey are mine and I am alive to make use of them, thanks to you."
He began to laugh madly then, and his aura enveloped me like die bone-freezing fog of the
Sempiternal Ice, and I feared I would die of despair and self-disgust on the spot. But in my mind
I heard the voice widiout words of my beloved voor Nunusio bidding me to have courage, and I
remembered my family and die others.
We must go, Nunusio told me, for a vast storm approaches that will challenge this evil one's magic
to the fullest. We must be away from the Kimilon before it breaks.
Haltingly, I told Portolanus what my voor had said. He uttered a strange oath and began quickly to
wrap up die precious star-box. He lashed it to die back of his own bird, rather than to that of
the third voor who carried our supplies. Then we were off, just as the volcanoes vanished in
impenetrable snowclouds.


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Our homeward journey was so ghasdy dial my memories of it have all but vanished. The wizard was
able to stave off enough of the wind so that we were not hurled to our deaths on die icecap, but
he could not keep out the monstrous cold. On the fifth day the storm finally blew away. We camped
on die ice that night under the brilliant light of the Three Moons, and Portolanus slept like a
dead man, exhausted from his storm-fending.
I dared to send a Call to our village, inquiring about my family and the others stricken by die
sorcerer's spell. Old Zozi Twistback responded to me widi dreadful tidings. Those who had at first
seemed only to lie in enchanted sleep had by the second day clearly surrendered dieir spirits and
gone safely beyond. The signs had been unmistakable. And so the sorrowing Folk had consigned their
bodies to a single great funeral pyre.
I could not help but howl my grief aloud. The sorcerer woke, and I berated him for a liar and a
foul murderer, and made to draw my hunting knife, desisting only when he threatened me widi the
magical rod.
"When used upon humans, it has the harmless effect I described," he said. "And you yourself
recovered easily
Blood ~EV i 11 i H m
15
enough, having been senseless for only a minute. There must be some unforeseen effect. You Oddling