"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 01 - Sorcery Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

ancient lava, then made, with a rudimentary gesture and a scatter of words, an
incantation Virelai thought might be one of the eight Parameters of Being, and brought a
huge oak crashing into the center of the room. Its boughs creaked and swayed
dangerously in the enclosed space. Bits of the ice roof crumbled and fell, but the Master
took no notice of any impending disaster; rather, his face creased with concentration, he
called the tree toward him as he had called the smoke and flame, and the tree obeyed,
flowing like an ocean of leaf and bark across the chamber. Great braids of green and
brown made a maelstrom around him, a maelstrom with the mage's mouth at its vortex.
Down it went, leaf and branch, bark and root, till there was no trace of it in the room.
Bëte, who during this latest display, even with her fur blown this way and that by the
force of the spell, had not moved an inch, now considered the old man expectantly. He
squeezed his eyes shut and coughed. With a muted plop, an acorn fell at the cat's feet. She
nosed at it curiously, then at the Master's hand as he retrieved it.
He pressed the acorn to the cat's face; but she made bars of her fangs. The Master
pressed harder. A second or two more of resistance, then the sharp teeth sprang apart
and Bëte had the acorn in her mouth, one of the mage's hands clamped over her muzzle
and the other rubbing at her throat. Her eyes bulged, as if in panic, then she swallowed.
Rahe smiled distractedly and said something soothing to the cat. Then he bent and
picked a speck of dirt—or else something indistinguishable—from the floor. After
inspecting it minutely, he muttered over it, turned twice upon his heel, and cast it aloft.
The chamber seemed to ripple before Virelai's eyes, then, where the oak had previously
been, there abruptly appeared a great winged creature, twelve feet tall and covered from
spiny head to clawed foot in luminous scales.
Even in the relative safety of the tower room, Virelai gasped in terror. Unbelievably, it
seemed that the beast had heard him, for it turned its head ponderously and regarded
him with eyes as multifaceted and unreadable as any bluebottle's. It opened its
monstrous jaws.
Then it seemed that the mage addressed it, for the appalling creature swung its head
away. Released from that terrible scrutiny, Virelai pulled back the focus of the crystals in
time to see the beast begin to dwindle, then to spin and rush toward its creator. A
moment later the Master stood untouched and alone. Protruding slightly from his mouth
was a small white object, which he gingerly withdrew and held out to his familiar. Upon
his palm lay a single leathery white egg. Bëte showed considerably more interest in this
object than she had in the acorn. Her nose twitched, then she carefully set her teeth
around it and, leaping light-footedly down from the table, carried the egg back to the rug,
where she ate it slowly with the side of her mouth.
Something the Master had said in the tower room came back to Virelai then. He had
been so distracted by the visions of Elda that it had not registered at the time, but now it
all came into clear focus. There's nothing worth saving in the end. May as well break it
all up, let nature take its course. Rahe was reversing his spellcraft, destroying all his
magic.
A red mist boiled in Virelai's head . . . .
The Master straightened up, passed his hand across his exhausted face, and began to
pace the chamber. Avoiding his feet nimbly, the cat sprang up onto a table upon which a
large crucible held a pile of ashes and what looked like a pair of charred brass hinges.
Virelai stared at the hinges. His head itched. He knew them; he knew them. . . . His
hand made a minute adjustment to the lever, and the vista skewed around the chamber.
Where was the great leather-bound volume in which the Master recorded each of his
procedures and findings, adding to the wisdom of his predecessors? Where was the Grand
Register of Making and Unmaking?