"Katya Reimann - Tielmaran 01 - Wind from a Foreign Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reimann Katya)

small against the Chancellor's high sorceries. The Keyhole Chamber was a sacral
place: an altar-chamber where the gods could be ritually invoked to bring gifts of
magic and power. The Chancellor had prepared the altar with seven bonds of
sorcery to enhance his spell-castingтАФhe'd boasted of it himself.
But the Keyhole Chamber was Tielmark's sacral place, and although the frieze
that ran atop the twelve walls of the chamber depicted the symbols of all twelve of
the high pantheon, it was the Great Twin Goddesses, Huntress Eliant├й and Lady
Emiera, who held the place of honor.
Mervion called to them both for strength, and they answered her.
Her spells of charming, of weaving, of tying and untyingтАФfragile woman's spells
that Heiratikus should have rended like rotten clothтАФspiraled out like scarlet threads,
filled with startling force. The quartet of guards accompanying the women cowered
back, horrified, stricken with images of impious trespass. Mervion's bonds slipped
from her like silk ribbons unbinding. An eldritch-fire web from Heiratikus was
tangled in a silver maze of misdirectionтАФturned aside as though it were of no
account.
That was when Anisia understood that the Chancellor, however powerful his
sorceries, was not calling his magic from the Tielmaran goddesses.
"Issachar!" the Chancellor called, his voice high and agitated, "get her up on the
altar before the scrying starts!"
The dark Bissantyman, his face grayed almost to silver by the light of the magic
fire, brushed the other guards aside to grab her. In retaliation, Mervion turned her
spells onto him. Her charms slipped past him ineffectually, and Issachar seized her
by her wrists. She dropped the magic then and fought him, woman to man, as the
guards she had witched to her grabbed at his coats and tried to prevent him from
touching her.
Issachar shrugged them off and grappled Mervion up onto the altar, too powerful
and brutal to be effectually resisted.
At that moment, Heiratikus caught Anisia in a basket of magic flame, tying her
tongue and body. She had been conscious of little after that.
But whatever had followed must have been disaster for Heiratikus. For if the
ambiance of the Keyhole Chamber amplified the casting of a spell, it also amplified a
spell's failure should it be broken.
Above her, Issachar Dan's dark figure dominated the altar, muscles straining like
tight cords. Mervion was still up on the great block with him, her slack body
sheathed in sweat, her down-turned face dull and tired. His massive body dwarfed
hers, his long fingers had pressed deep purple bruises into the flesh of her bare
upper arms. The chapel walls were black with soot. They were both covered in dark
ash, and the cicatrized ritual scars on Issachar's cheeks had opened and begun to
seep fresh blood.
Heiratikus was cold with fury. Whatever he had intended with the spell he had
bound on the altar, it had obviously not succeeded.
"Drop her, curse you, let her go!" the Chancellor shouted.
His dark servant scowled. Like a great bird of prey rejecting its quarry, he
released Mervion's arms. Without his support, she dropped off the altar like a limp
doll. The gag-spell blocked Anisia's reflexive sympathetic cry.
"Now get down yourself," the Chancellor said. "You look like a fool. Get down.
Unless standing there in the gods' eyes has seized your fancy, get down."
"A fool indeed," Issachar said, wiping blood from his face. "You should be
grateful that my strength did not fail me as your spells have failed you." For all his