"James M. Ward - The Pool 3 - Pool of Twilight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ward James M)

Pool of Twilight
Book 3 of the Pool Trilogy
By James M. Ward and Anne K. Brown
Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: November, 7 th , 2003
This effort is dedicated to my best friend, Mike Gray, The dude probably won't even read this book, but he's
a good guy anyway.
-J.M.W.

For my grandmother, Adeline Dauska, the treasure in my past; and for my daughter, Emily, the treasure in my
future.
тАФA.K.B.
 1
Dark Dreams
The paladin stood before the shadowed archway, breathing air sharp and acrid with the stench of magic.
The stone ruins about him were dark and strangely dis-torted. The walls of the dank chambers seemed to
be undulating wildly, the leprous colonnades lurching at queer angles, as if the place had been designed by a
mad-man.
The paladin gripped a heavy, combat-worn battle-hammer firmly in one gauntleted hand, and in his other
he held a white crestless shield. Before being granted a symbol of honor, a paladin had to prove his worth.
This was his test.
He stepped through the archway.
Immediately he sensed it. Evil. It lingered on the air, coating him as he passed, leaving what felt like a
thin, noxious layer of rancid oil on his skin. The paladin did his best to ignore it as he journeyed into the
blackness. His shield gave off a faint azure radiance, lighting his way.
Yesss. .. Come to me, Hammerseeker.
The bubbling voice seemed to ooze out of the darkness from all directions, shrill and inhuman.
"Who are you?" the paladin called into the murk. The beating of his heart echoed loudly inside his steel
breast-plate.
Your doom!
Without warning, a pulsing crimson glow burst apart the darkness with violent light, revealing a chamber
of monstrous proportions. Ponderous stone vaults, as huge and misshapen as giants, supported a ceiling lost
in the crimson miasma. The walls were formed of what seemed at first to be huge oblong bricks. It was
only after a moment that the paladin realized what they really were: coffins.
There were hundreds of them. No, thousands. Coffins of beaten gold and worm-eaten wood, of
rune-carved stone and rotting wicker. Many were cracked and broken, their denizens hanging out of them
in a thousand differ-ent states of decay, all leering at him with the ceaseless grins of death.
Come, youngling! Bow to me, before I rend your limbs apart.
Shadows swirled in the lofty nave of the huge chamber. The paladin approached almost against his will.
He barely noticed the heaps of treasure scattered around him. Beaten silver urns shone like enormous
hearts in the pulsing crimson light. Gold coffers lay broken open, their jeweled contents spilling out of them
like guts.
Closer, youngling. Come gaze upon what you have given your brief and pitiful life to seek.
Blue radiance burst into life high in the nave. The pal-adin caught a glimpse of something hovering at the
center of the diamond-hard brilliance, an object of wondrous power. Then the shadows swirled, cloaking the
blessed light
And now, Hammerseeker, you die!
Something moved with terrible swiftness in the dark-ness of the nave. The paladin barely managed to lift
his shield in time to meet the blow. He cried out as pain coursed like lightning up his arm. The white shield
shud-dered, then burst asunder in a spray of twisted shards. The denizens of the coffin-walls jeered at him