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The Magehound :: Каннингем Элейн
Страница: 6 из 216He tore a corner from the parchment map and walked back to the bones of his former master. Taking Chalzaster's medallion in one hand, he pressed the parchment against the sigil. During his apprenticeship, he had been magically empowered to affix Chalzaster's sigil to the spell scrolls he copied, thus marking them as authentic copies of the archmage's work. This power was his to command until the day he died, so by this reasoning the sigil should burn a glowing red shadow of itself onto the parchment
But it did not. Whatever magic the medallion had once held was long gone.
Zilgorn rocked back on his heels and considered this. Chalzaster had no patience for anything mundane or magic-dead, so every person with him had surely been a wizard, or possibly a cleric. All had died quickly, according to the power they held: most of them in the act of attacking, the great Chalzaster in mid-spell. But the elf woman, a creature whose essence and body and soul were fashioned of magic as surely as a rainbow was made of light, had been drained so quickly that she had left nothing but a transparent, profoundly empty image. Zilgorn had never heard of such a thing, but he knew death well-well enough to see his own death foretold by the bones of Chalzaster, and his pretensions of magical power mocked by the elf's frozen ghost.
The necromancer stiffened. "Away from here! Flee this place at once!"
The panic in his voice lent wings to the other men's feet. They charged from the ruined temple and stumbled frantically down the narrow path.
They pulled up short at the water's edge, eyeing the dark, simmering surface as they struggled to calm their frenzied breathing and quiet their pounding hearts.
Quiet.
It occurred to Zilgorn suddenly that the swamp had become eerily silent At twilight, the swamp usually seethed with life, but no crocodiles roared from the shallows, no birds shrieked or twittered in the canopy, no monkeys scolded. Even the insects had stopped humming. The swamp itself seemed to be huddled down, wary and watchful.
Then a terrible thrumming roar ripped through the air, at once both as deep as thunder and as shrill as a falcon's cry. Zilgorn, dazed and defeated though he was, thought he heard a dissonant chorus of lost voices reverberating through the inhuman roar. One of those voices he knew well.
The necromancer squared his shoulders and prepared to join Chalzaster in whatever afterlife their efforts had earned them. He summoned a lightning sphere, the most powerful spell left to him, suspecting that magic would act as a lure and make his end quicker.
But it did not. Whatever magic the medallion had once held was long gone.
Zilgorn rocked back on his heels and considered this. Chalzaster had no patience for anything mundane or magic-dead, so every person with him had surely been a wizard, or possibly a cleric. All had died quickly, according to the power they held: most of them in the act of attacking, the great Chalzaster in mid-spell. But the elf woman, a creature whose essence and body and soul were fashioned of magic as surely as a rainbow was made of light, had been drained so quickly that she had left nothing but a transparent, profoundly empty image. Zilgorn had never heard of such a thing, but he knew death well-well enough to see his own death foretold by the bones of Chalzaster, and his pretensions of magical power mocked by the elf's frozen ghost.
The necromancer stiffened. "Away from here! Flee this place at once!"
The panic in his voice lent wings to the other men's feet. They charged from the ruined temple and stumbled frantically down the narrow path.
They pulled up short at the water's edge, eyeing the dark, simmering surface as they struggled to calm their frenzied breathing and quiet their pounding hearts.
Quiet.
It occurred to Zilgorn suddenly that the swamp had become eerily silent At twilight, the swamp usually seethed with life, but no crocodiles roared from the shallows, no birds shrieked or twittered in the canopy, no monkeys scolded. Even the insects had stopped humming. The swamp itself seemed to be huddled down, wary and watchful.
Then a terrible thrumming roar ripped through the air, at once both as deep as thunder and as shrill as a falcon's cry. Zilgorn, dazed and defeated though he was, thought he heard a dissonant chorus of lost voices reverberating through the inhuman roar. One of those voices he knew well.
The necromancer squared his shoulders and prepared to join Chalzaster in whatever afterlife their efforts had earned them. He summoned a lightning sphere, the most powerful spell left to him, suspecting that magic would act as a lure and make his end quicker.