"Andre Norton - WW - Secrets 03 - The Warding of Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Abruptly he shut off those disturbing thoughts to concentrate on matters at hand. He had indeed
reached a kind of lookout, one that Kurnous the Head Lord himself might have arranged.

But what he looked down upon was a puzzle which he strove sharply to bring into proper focus.
There were men below, right enough. A number of them were plainly Alizondern slaves born into
hopeless labor for all their lives. Only one of the white-haired, arrogant warrior class was visible,
apparently sent to oversee the labors of the others.

Equipped with massive chains and wrist-thick ropes, they had apparently drawn into this
place--for the ground was deep-rutted behind them--two massive pillars of stone. The red light which
gave sight for their labors came not from any true fire but out of a huge kettlelike cauldron around which
stood three men of another race.

Simon's lip curled. Both those of good and those of evil had survived not only the Great War of
the adepts but all the chaos thereafter. One of those men down there he knew--not from any meeting
between them but because he had seen his image summoned up in smoke when Dahaun of the Green
Valley had sought danger near and distant.

It was Rarapon, once linked with the traitor Denzil, and as eager as that damned one to regain
power. He wore the crimson robe of an adept but kept fussing with its belt and then its collar as if it did
not fit.

The slaves were finishing their labor. Deep pits had been dug and now the stones were ready to
be raised by pulleys. Simon saw Rarapon make a quick gesture. The Alizondern noble nodded and
clicked his fingers. At that signal there were short struggles next to the pits ready to receive the ends of
the rocks. At each, two of the slaves turned on a third, one of their fellows, and hurled him down into the
dark hole, even as the pillar was allowed to crash into place.

Rarapon moved forward with a strut such as might be assumed by the leader of a great
congregation. He raised both hands high and began to weave a pattern back and forth in the air, angry
red trails following his fingers.

Now he chanted also, but the sound reached Simon only as singsong noise.

Simon needed no nudging from a talent he lacked -- he knew Rarapon was striving to open a
gate! Gates were the ancient ways through which the adepts of the Great Age had explored other worlds
at their whims -- whose secrets, even whose existence in most cases had been forgotten.

The gates had not only taken wanderers and wayfarers out -- they had drawn them in. From
solitary venturers, such as he had been so many years ago, to whole nations like the Dalesmen of High
Hallack, the Sulcars, and various smaller bands and clans.

And they had drawn evil as well. The plague of the Kolders, who had ravaged as much of this
world as they could touch. Lately also that invasion overseas made by strange seagoing race of fanatics
whom only the skill, blood, and courage of Falconers and Dalesmen together had stopped. The
Falconers themselves, the --

None of those who survived that blast of raw magic, uncontrolled, chaotic, could afterward
honestly describe the ponderous power which had played with them. Deafened, only half conscious from