"Karl Edward Wagner - Sing a Last Song of Valdese" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

"Korjonos?" asked the priest
"Did not die. He was sworn to the Grey Lord for seven times seven years, and
death could not claim him. His familiar demon cut him down and carried him
away. And the rage of the sorcerer waited years upon painful years for fitting
vengeance to transpire."
A chair crashed as Claesna leaped to his feet. "Gods! Don't you see? It's been
near fifty years, and our faces and names were otherwise! But I thought
several of your faces seemed familiar to me! Don't deny it! It's no
coincidence that all six of us have returned to this inn tonight! Sorcery has
drawn us here! But who...?"
The innkeeper smiled in secret mirth as their startled voices shouted in
protest. He crossed over to in front of the fire. Still smiling, he peeled off
the black gloves.
And they saw what manner of hands were grafted to his wrists.
With these hands he dug at the flesh of his face.
The smiling lips peeled away with the rest, and they saw the noseless horror
that had been a face, saw the black reptilian tongue that lashed between
broken teeth.
They sat frozen in shock. The dwarf entered unnoticed, a tiny corpse in his
hairy hands.
"Stillborn, master," he snickered, holding by its heels the blue-skinned
infant. "Strangled by her cord, and the mother died giving forth." He stepped
into the center of their circle.
Then the chill of the autumn night bore down upon them, a chill greater than
that of any natural darkness.
"Seven years time seven," hissed Korjonos. "So long have I plotted for this.
I've shaped your lives from the day of your crime, let you fatten like cattle,
let you live for the day when you would pay as no man has ever paid!
"Callistratis," he called aside, "this isn't for you! I don't know how you
came here, but go now if you still can."
Faces set in fear, they stared at the wizard. Invisible bonds held them in
their places about the circle.
Korjonos chanted and gestured. "Holy man, evil man. Wise man, fool. Brave man,
coward. Six corners of the heptagon, and I, a dead man who lives, make the
seventh. Contradicting opposites that invoke the chaos lords--and the final
paradox is the focus of the spell: an innocent soul who has never lived, a
damned soul who can never die!
"Seven times seven years have passed, and when the Grey Lord comes for me, you
six shall follow into his realm!"
Suddenly Ranvyas sprang to life. "The dagger!"
The abbot stared dumbly, then fumbled at his cassock. He seemed to move at a
dreamlike pace.
Hissing in rage, Korjonos rushed into the incantation.
Passlo clumsily extended the dagger, but the ranger was faster.
Tearing the dagger from Passlo's trembling fingers, he hurled it at the
grinning dwarf.
Bodger shrieked and dropped the stillborn infant. Reeking smoke boiled from
his chest where the crystal hilt protruded He reeled, seemed to sag inward
upon himself, like a collapsing coat of mail. Then there was only a charred
greasy smear, a pile of filthy clothes--and a hairy spider that scurried away