"Reichert, Mickey - Renshai 2 - Western Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichert Mickey Zucker)

27. The Next Betrayal 512

28. The Symbol of the Coiled Serpent 537

29. LaZar 558

30. The Tower of Night 576

31. A Swordsman Unmatched 595 Epilogue 611 Appendix 613

PROLOGUE

For centuries, the Amirannak Sea had kicked spindrift on the ragged Northland shores, but the Northern Sorceress, Trilless, watched waters glazed with calm. Perched upon a seaside cliff in the country of Asci, she stared into the fjord, watching wind scarcely ruffle ocean the color of steel. The tide tugged so gently that the waters barely seemed to pulse in time with her heartbeat.

Trilless had come to this unpopulated shoreline for the quiet solace it offered, yet the ancient champion of all goodness found no peace within or without. For all its stillness, the ocean seemed coiled and restless, locked into the dark instant of lull that preceded the most violent storms. As if in answer, the memories and surviving slivers of identity from Trilless' eighteen predecessors seemed to writhe within her. Always before, they had remained quiescent, a conglomerate of experiences and references she called upon in time of need. Now, they heaved and fidgeted like tempest-wracked waves, while the ocean itself remained uncharacteristically stagnant.

More than four centuries ago, the ceremony that had established Trilless as the Northern Sorceress, one of the four Cardinal Wizards, had also, by necessity, claimed the life of her direct predecessor. Trilless knew that the pool of knowledge granted to her by that ceremony made her the most powerful of her line, just as her own successor would gain the benefit of her lore and become even more wise, knowledgeable, and skilled. The first four Cardinal Wizards established by Odin, including the original Northern Sorceress, had no magical powers. Haunted by dreams and images, they had written or spoken their prophecies, leaving them for later, more adept

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successors to fulfill. Now, Trilless found herself haunted by the first prediction of the first Northern Sorceress:

In an age of change

When Chaos shatters Odin's ward

And the Cardinal Wizards forsake their vows

A Renshai shall come forward.

Hero of the Great War

He will hold legend and destiny in his hand

And wield them like a sword.

Too late shall he be known unto you:

The Golden Prince of Demons.

Clearly, that promised age of change had come. Trilless knew a tense expectancy that seemed to follow her, an inescapable current that suffused the world and all the creatures in it. Some of the tenets had already come to pass. Goaded by Carcophan, who was the current Southern Wizard, King Siderin of the Eastlands had launched the Great War against the mixed races of the Westlands.

Trilless' brow knit. A scowl formed naturally on her creased features at the thought of Carcophan, her evil opposite. Law and propriety had barred her from directly observing or taking part in this war. But, through magic, she had glimpsed those parts which involved Northmen. Only one of the eighteen Northern tribes had chosen to aid the Westerners in the War; the Vikerians had gone, allied to the Town of Santagithi. Their second-in-command, a lieutenant called Valr Kirin, showed promise as a warrior and as a possible champion of goodness. But, despite his competence, the hero of the Great War was not Kirin "The Slayer."

Trilless' thoughts flowed naturally to the Renshai who had earned the title "Golden Prince of Demons," Colbey Calistinsson. She saw his cold blue-gray eyes in a hard face scarcely beginning to show age. He kept his mixed gold and white locks hacked short, a style that looked out of place amid the other Northmen's war braids. Though relatively small, he moved with a strength

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and agility she had never seen matched in any warrior or acrobat. At sixty-five, Colbey was older than any Renshai in history, except for the ancient Episte who had died a decade and a half ago. Enamored with war, Renshai rarely lived through their thirties, and inbreeding had fostered a racial feature that made them seem younger than their actual ages. This, combined with a custom of naming infants for brave warriors slain in battle, had given rise to rumors that Renshai drank blood to remain eternally young.