"James M. Ward - The Pool 1 - Pool of Radiance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ward James M)

"Nice spell, Burning Hands," said Ranthor with a chuckle. "Comes in handy sometimes."
The blue cloud vanished, and Shal saw the discarded components arranged neatly on top of her
spellbook....
That had happened more than three weeks ago, and she had mastered the Burning Hands spell the next
day. With that one vision, Ranthor had managed to renew her interest, not only in a spell she had given up
on, but also in spell-casting in general. Without a single harsh word, he had provided the insight that allowed
her to identify which gesture she was performing incorrectly. Ranthor always seemed to have some way to
keep her enthusias-tic about magic. With subtle encouragement, he could get her dreaming of moving
mountains or defeating the numerous monsters that threatened the people of their sparsely populated region.
Whenever she felt discouraged, her old master would remind her of her great promise. Whenever she
grew tired of the rigors of memorizing spells or performing the dozens of routine tasks that made up her
day, she would receive a magical message from him, reminding her that promise means nothing without
diligence.
At the moment, Shal stood on the grounds of Ranthor's keep, struggling with a Weather Control spell he
had encouraged her to try once she had mastered the Burning Hands spell. She faced the wind, just as
Ranthor had in-structed, and tried to visualize it. Her mind pictured the wind as pale, violet-white wisps of
cloudlike material, and she imagined herself collecting the wisps within the exaggerated reach of her
gesturing hands and molding them into a flat sheet so thin and so swift-moving that it could slice her
enemies in two. Next she envisioned a solid wall of force that would push back her opponents. Then a
churning funnel cloud that would suck them into its whirling vortex. Finally she intoned the words to the
spell, taking care to match the inflection indicated in the runes she had so painstakingly memorized.
Unfortunately, each time she tried the spell, the results were the same. There was no wall of force.. .
not even a good strong gust. There was no cyclone ... not even a tiny dust devil. There was just a faint
whoosh, and in-stantly the wind would pass by and out of her reach.
Tired and discouraged, Shal left the wind to its own de-vices and went inside the tower. She wished
Ranthor were present to give her some of his usual valuable ad-vice and supportтАФsome clue, anything. She
wished, plain and simple, that he was back from his mission so she could stop worrying about him.
The day after Shal had mastered the Burning Hands spell, the same day Ranthor had suggested she try
her hand at Weather Control, her master had departed. Shal had been in Ranthor's spell-casting chamber
working on a Lightning spell. She knew she wasn't ready yet to attempt the spell outside. She wanted
merely to create one little bolt that would arc between the conductor she had posi-tioned on the crux of
Ranthor's casting stand and the cop-per spike she'd fastened to a nearby shelf of components.
She meditated for a moment to help her mind focus, then traced and retraced with her eyes the path that
she wanted the lightning to follow. Finally she lifted her hands and spoke, with all the intensity she could
muster, the words of the spell. A crystal orb on a nearby shelf of components began to blaze red, growing
steadily. With the final word of the spell still on her tongue, Shal screamed for Ranthor, and immediately the
lightning be-gan to pulse about the room, rattling the jars of magical components and sending several
crashing to the floor. Her aging master rushed into the chamber as fast as his rheumatism-ridden legs could
carry him. In one hand, he held a wand, its tip glowing with a molten fire, and in the other, he held a small
bag of sparkling dust, no doubt some powerful weapon he had grabbed to use against whatever horror he
found in the spell-casting area.
When he entered the room, he found Shal braced against the wall, an expression of stark terror on her
face, pointing at the glowing crystal. He took one look and began to laugh, first a light, whispering snicker,
then a full belly laugh. "Shal, my student of three years, do you not yet know that wizards use orbs to
contact each other? That is simply my old friend Denlor calling me," Ranthor explained, pointing at the
crystal. He breathed a single arcane syllable, and the orb rose into the air and began to float toward Shal.
Despite her teacher's amuse-ment, Shal could feel the hairs rise on the back of her neck as the glowing orb
drifted closer.
"Pick it up, Shal." Ranthor removed the bronze cone from the center of the three-legged casting stand
and pointed at the crux where the three legs met and crossed. "Pick it up," he repeated when she hesitated.