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

The demon faded into the gloom. Its semisolid form oozed beneath Trilless' wards. Abruptly, wind chopped the jeweled calm of the sea, took down the hood of the sorceress' cloak, and spilled her white hair into her face. But the demon's bonds held. The gale withered and dropped. The demon's eyes gleamed, and its jaws parted to reveal pointed teeth as dark as its form. "Lady, I do not know."

Trilless gritted her teeth, prodded by frustration and rage. She dared not believe she had taken such a risk for nothing. "Who does know?" She tried to keep her mood hidden, but her question emerged like a shout.

"More powerful demons," it suggested, then laughed.

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Mickey Zucker Reichert

"Perhaps." Its features contorted to a blur, then returned to a facelike configuration. "Though one of your own did witness the ceremony."

Trilless considered. The demon had volunteered the information; apparently, it had more to say on this topic, and that intrigued her. Its words gave her two courses to follow, and she chose the more promising one. "By ceremony, do you mean Tokar's ceremony of passage?" "Yes."

"SoTokarisdead?"

"As dead as any Cardinal Wizard can be. His being, as such, was utterly destroyed."

Trilless concentrated on the demon's explanation. A Wizard's ceremony of passage did result in the utter destruction of body and soul, leaving only memories, including misconceptions and weaknesses, that joined the collective consciousness and became a part of his apprentice. "What happened to Tokar's successor?"

"I do not know."

"Is he alive?"

"I do not know."

"Is he dead?"

"I do not know."

Trilless abandoned this line of questioning, following the other path instead. "You said that one of my own witnessed the ceremony."

The bulk of the demon darkened until it seemed less a being and more the absence of being, a dense hole in the cosmos. "I said this."

"Who?" Trilless asked. Then, realizing she had left the question far too vague, she clarified. "Who witnessed the Western Wizard's ceremony of passage?"

"Many birds."

The answer seemed obvious. The Western Wizard had an empathic link with birds similar to the Eastern Wizard's connection to land animals and her own with denizens of the ocean. The Southern Wizard could command the creatures of transition, those that lived part of their life cycle on land and part in water or those land creatures that laid eggs. Recognizing the demon's answer as delay, Trilless pressed. "Who is the 'one of my own' who witnessed the ceremony?"

The Western Wizard 9

"Carcophan."

Trilless' eyes narrowed. The response seemed unlikely. "The Southern Wizard witnessed Tokar's ceremony of passage?" "No."

Trilless froze at the seeming contradiction, retracing her thoughts for the mistake. She rephrased the question more carefully. "Was there a mortal or a Wizard present at the Western Wizard's ceremony of passage who was not Tokar or his apprentice?" "Yes," the demon said, supplying nothing more. "Name all the mortals or Wizards present at the Western Wizard's ceremony of passage."

The demon's face became manlike enough to reveal a toothy grin. "That, Lady, was not a question."