"Cook, Glen - Darkwar 02 - Warlock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cook Glen)

What was she up to? And where was Grauel's rifle? She had not been parted from the weapon since she had received it from Bagnel. She slept with it, it was so precious. Her carrying it all the time had to be cause for consternation and comment.

Almost, Marika looked back. Almost. Native guile stopped her.

Two silth led her to a vast, ill-lighted chamber. No electricity there, just tapers shuddering in chilly drafts. As must be in a place where silth worked their magics. Electromagnetic energies interfered with their talents.

This was the chamber where the most important Reugge rites were observed. Marika had been there before only as a dark-walker. Other than in its symbolic value, the place was nothing special.

Two dozen ranking silth waited, perched silently upon tall stools. Only the occasional flick of an inadvertently exposed tail betrayed the fact that anything was happening behind their cold obsidian-flake eyes. Every one of those eyes was fixed upon Marika.

She was less intimidated than she expected.

Several worker-servants moved among the silth, managing wants and refreshments. One with a tray approached Marika. She was an ancient whose fur had fallen in patches, leaving only ugly bare spots. She dragged her right leg in a stiff limp. As Marika waved her away, she was startled by the meth's scent. Something familiar . . .

In a low voice the servant said, "Mind your manners, pup." She hitch-stepped off to the sideboard that seemed to be her station.

Barlog!

Barlog. With a limp. And Grauel's treasure was missing.

With that rifle Barlog could cut down half the silth in the room before any even thought of employing their witchery.

Marika was pleased by the resourcefulness of Grauel and Barlog. But she felt no more confident of her ability to handle the subtleties of the coming interview.

Of the silth in that room, Marika recognized only two. Zertan and Moragan. Marika faced the senior and performed the appropriate ceremonial greeting to perfection. She would show Barlog who could mind her manners.

"This is the one from Akard?" a gravelly voice asked.

"Yes, mistress."

The most senior, Marika assumed. Younger than she had expected. She was a hard, chunky, grizzled female with slightly wild eyes. Like a Gorry still sane. A sister who was as much huntress as silth, and a hungry huntress at that.

"I thought she would be older. And bigger," the most senior said, echoing Marika's own thoughts.

"She is young," Moragan said, and Marika noted that she was completely awake and vibrant and alive. Moragan's stool stood between those of Zertan and the most senior, an inch nearer that of the latter, subtly proclaiming her most important tie.

Senior Zertan said, "We do not know what to do with her. Her history is repellent at best. She is an astoundingly strong feral detected accidentally four years ago. Akard took her in. That was soon after the first nomadic incursions into the upper Ponath. Her hamlet was one of the first overrun. It seems that, with no training whatsoever, purely instinctively she drew to the dark and slew several savages. Her latent ability in that respect so disturbed some of our sisters that they labeled her Jiana, after the mythological and archetypal doomstalker Jiana. A sister, Gorry, who had a Community-wide reputation before the necessity for her rustification arose-"

A revenant shrieked in Marika's mind. Jiana! Doomstalker!

"Zertan." Most Senior Gradwohl's voice was coldly cautionary.

Zertan shifted her emphasis slightly. "Gorry had very strong, very negative feelings about the pup. In one way of seeing, Gorry was correct. She has twice been almost the only survivor of monstrous disasters that befell those who nurtured her. Gorry was very much afraid of her, but was her teacher. Thus her training there was haphazard at best. Reliable reports do indicate that she achieved a commanding ability to reach and command the darkest of those-who-dwell."

The object of discussion was growing more irate by the moment. Barlog's cold stare helped her control her tongue.

"Zertan," Gradwohl said again. "Enough. I have seen all the reports you have, and more." For a moment the Maksche senior seemed startled. "Can you tell me anything new? Anything I do not know? How does she feel about the sisterhood?"

After a silence that began to stretch painfully, Zertan admitted, "I have no idea how she feels. But it does not matter. A pup's attitudes are the clay that the teacher-"