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

"How can this be?" Tarl asked. Gently, expertly, his fin-gers explored his son's injury. Tarl had been a
cleric of Tyr for over three decades and had seen and healed more wounds on the battlefield than he could
ever have counted. "You've had the dream a dozen times, Kern, yet this has never happened before."
Shal laid a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Can you heal him, beloved?" Her voice was calm and
controlled, but urgency shone in her green eyes.
Tarl nodded, laying both of his strong hands on Kern's chest. Briefly, the cleric shut his unseeing eyes. A
prayer tumbled from his lips. "May Tyr grant me power in this time of need," he finished. A sapphire
nimbus sprang to life around his hands and spread over Kern's wounds, radiating healing power.
Suddenly the magical glow vanished. Blue cobwebs drifted down in its place, covering Kern and the bed
in a sticky web.
Shal frowned, glancing at her husband. "When was the last time one of your healing spells went awry?"
Tarl was dumbfounded. "When I was a neophyte, about thirty years ago. I don't understand what
happened. The spell was working fine, then something seemed to suck the magic right out of it." Tarl
pressed his hands against the four gashes on Kern's chest, slowing the bleeding.
Kern gritted his teeth. Pain was nothing to a paladin, he reminded himself. But then, he wasn't a true
paladin yet.
"What's going on?" a clear, crystalline voice asked.
A delicate young woman stood in the doorway of Kern's chamber. Between her forest green tunic and
short dark hair she looked almost like a pretty but mischievous boy. Listle, Shal's apprentice, grinned
impishly. "I heard some-thing that sounded like an ogre's courting call down here and thought I'd better
investigate."
She moved toward the others with a swift, smooth grace that belied her gray elven blood. Her ears were
daintily pointed, her eyes silvery. Lamplight glimmered off a ruby pendant hanging from a silver chain
around her throat She halted when she saw the blood oozing between Tarl's fingers. "Kern! What
happened?"
"Listle," Shal said in her steady voice, "there's a purple jar on the highest shelf in my spellcasting
chamber. You'll recognize it by the star-rune on the seal. It's an ointment of healing. I want you to get it for
me. Now!"
Listle nodded, her eyes wide. She spoke a few fluid words of magic, and silver sparks crackled around
her feet The elf dashed out of the chamber so swiftly her out-line seemed to blur.
"I wish she wouldn't do that," Shal said with annoyance. "A swiftness spell takes a year off your life
every time it's cast. True, elven lifespans are long, but not so long that Listle should squander a year every
time she has the whim."
"Hush, wife," Tarl said gently. "She is only trying to help Kern."
"I'll be all right" Kern said weakly. "Really."
"You be quiet!" Shal snapped.
Kern meekly clamped his mouth shut. The room was beginning to swim around him.
Moments later, Listle burst into the room like a silver comet "I'm sorry I took so long," the elf gasped
breath-lessly. Her shiny hair was a raven-dark tangle, sticking out wildly in every direction. "You have a
confusing variety of jars and vials, Shal."
"Did you find the ointment?"
Listle nodded, handing Shal a small purple jar. The sor-ceress took it breaking the runic seal with a single
word of magic.
"Now, Kern, I need you to listen to me very carefully," Shal said. Her voice was stern but reassuringly
calm. "I need you to open yourself to the power of the healing ointment. Imagine that you're surrounded by
a shining wall of white light, a wall that blocked your father's spell."
The young man closed his eyes and did his best to pic-ture a shimmering wall enclosing him.
"All right, Kern, now I want you to lower the wall. Slowly. Don't rush it. Let it drop, inch by inch, until
it's just a shining ring at your feet."
Kern gritted his teeth with effort. It was hard, but grad-ually his will won out and the imaginary wall