"Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 06 - The Undying Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

The head turned on its thin neck with another stirring of shoulder-length hair like lifeless silver thread. One
hand, the right, rose before the face. It turned there, like a specimen the dead eyes studied, while the robeтАЩs
dolmen sleeve slid down. Revealed was a wrist that was only skin drawn over bone like hide tedded for its
tanning.
The skin was not tan, but nearly white, like new linen.
The hand slapped the chest, moved over the face. It traced out the high forehead, the deep crag-surmounted
sockets of the pale, pale eyes, that thin nose with its porcelain-like nostrils, the gaunt cheeks, the mouth
that was little more than a horizontal gash between mustache and ashy beard.
The resurrected corpse, alone beneath the earth... spoke.
тАЬThin, O Great Serpent, this bodyтАФmerely skin over bone like the fine parchment of Vanara stretched over
stone to dry!тАЭ The voice that issued from the corpse was soft, almost a whisper. тАЬA lean body, far from young.
A priest, a seer, a mageтАФa Druid, it is called. From a land called Norge, where the ice remains long and
snow falls and lies ever atop the craggy peaks, and wind howls cold to cut like a chariot-wheelтАЩs scythe.тАЭ
Up leaped robe-swathed arms, to raise clenched fists on high.
тАЬALIVE! Alive and in the form of a man once more, with hands, aye and feet to walk the earth again! Cutha
Atheldane. That was the name of the life-force that quickened this body before mine animated it anew.тАЭ
The Undead man laughed aloud and turned quite around in its jubilation.
тАЬALIVE! One is grateful for having been snatched from eternal exile in that other dimension that would have
been like mortal death, from the life-sucking sword. Yet... to have lain here, waiting, handless and voiceless
in the body of a son of the Great Serpent... for eighteen thousand years! Ah!тАЭ
Again he turned about, he who had been Cutha Atheldane, Druid of Norway and was now... someone else,
some Thing else. His movements were quick and more sure now, animated by one of the strongest life-forces
that had ever existed, one that had lived and trod the earth before Atlantis rose from the deeps, let alone
sank.
тАЬCutha Atheldane am I, then!тАЭ And he laughed. Exultant, was the new Cutha Atheldane. He moved, he cried
out his joy.
But he did not breathe.
тАЬOne hundred eighty centuries! Ah, Chaos that existed before all and will reign again, a hundred and eighty
times a hundred years! But, a moment in eternity, ayeтАФbut what an eternity to have been held here by both
stone and spell... and in a body with neither voice nor hands! And liberated...тАЭ
Cutha Atheldane, who was not Cutha Atheldane, broke off in a short laugh that would have raised the hackles
of a dog and sent birds aflying.
тАЬAh I knew him, I recognized him at once, ere even he came floundering like a barbarian puppet down into my
prison... to release me by slaying the serpentтАЩs body that incarcerated me! I know ye for who ye were, not
who ye are now! In any incarnation would I know thee, ancient enemy, barbarian king on a throne of fiery
gemsтАФa throne you usurped after slaying the noble lord who sat it!тАЭ
The voice trailed off like whispering leaves when the wind dies. When it commenced anew it was much lower,
quiet now, and full of menace and deadly purpose.
тАЬNone there are to believe how long I have lived, or how long I have waited, while uncounted millions of little
mortal men have strutted the earth, and bred like the pigs they are, and slew and slew, and so much of the
Old Knowledge was lost that what remainsтАФin the hands of these тАШDruidsтАЩтАФis but the ghost of the shadow of
the shadow of what I know! But I have LIVED, I have remained on this earth in this dimension, whilst others
died and returned scores of times. And now... at last I will have my vengeance, after a hundred and eighty
centuries.тАЭ
The risen dead man looked about, ruminating. тАЬFirst I must be invited to leave this isle, for still I am bound
here by the old spell. But... I shall come to thee, you who men know now as Cormac mac Art of Connacht in
Eirrin! I... will... have... my... VENGEANCE!тАЭ
And as the tall and cadaverous figure in the night-dark robe hurled aloft both arms amid a flapping of full
tapering sleeves, the eyes and lips of his visage seemed to waver and vanish, to be replaced for an instant by
a ghastly, grinning, chalk-white skull!