"Alan Dean Foster - Catechist 3 - A Triumph Of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

“And quite properly so. Very good, Termaget. You may go.”

“Thank you, Lord.” Bowing and scraping, the old man retreated toward the main doorway. As he turned
to depart, Hymneth considered whether to let the eromakadi take a playful nip at his heels. Nothing
serious; just a week or so out of his remaining years. Days someone like Termaget would probably
waste anyway. Hymneth decided against it, knowing that the old fellow probably would not see the
humor in the situation.

His cape flowing behind him like blood running down the outside of a chalice, he exited the dining
room. Instead of striding toward the audience chamber as he normally did this time of morning, he
turned instead to his right in the middle of the main hall. The door there was bolted with a hex and
locked with a spell, both of which yielded to the keys of his voice. He did not bother to seal it behind
him. It would take a braver man or woman than dwelled in the castle to try the steps that began to
descend immediately behind the door. Hex and spell were designed not to keep them out, but to seal
something securely within.

Torches flared to life at his approach, the flames bowing briefly in his direction. As Hymneth descended
the corkscrewing stairway, one of the eromakadi darted swiftly upward behind him to suck the life out
of one torch. The flame screamed, a high-pitched conflagratory shriek, as it died. When Hymneth turned
to reproach the black gust of horror, it hid behind its twin like a censured child.

Down the Lord of Ehl-Larimar went, below the sewers that carried water and waste away from the
castle, below the dungeons where men and women and children wailed and whimpered in forgotten
misery, below even the unshakable foundations of the massive fortress itself. Down until there was
nothing left but the raw Earth—and the Pit that had been gouged from its heart.

At this depth nothing could live that basked in the light of the sun. In the perpetual darkness, things that
rarely saw the surface burrowed and crept, mewling and cheeping softly to others of their own kind,
hoping to avoid the mephitic, malodorous monstrosities armed with teeth and claw that would prey

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 A Triumph of Souls: Journeys of the Catechist, Book 3

readily on anything that moved. An eerie glow came from the phosphorescent fungi that thrust bulbous,
deformed stalks and heads above the surface of the Pit, giving it the appearance of some ghastly,
unwholesome garden. In this place even the air seemed dead. All movement took place below the
surface, out of sight, out of light.

Until Hymneth arrived, with eromakadi in tow.

Pausing on the last step, the final piece of clean, hewn stone that bordered the Pit, he gazed speculatively
down into its depths. His boots, he knew, would require days of scrubbing to make them clean again. As
he slowly lifted both arms up and out, his steady, sturdy voice shattered the diseased stillness.

“Alegemakh! Borun val malcuso.Show thyself, and speak!”

For a long moment there was nothing. No sound, no movement except the breathy stirring of the
eromakadi. Then soil began to tremble, and shift, disturbed by some movement from below. Clumps of
moist loam shuddered and individual particles of dirt bounced and quivered until at last they were thrust
aside by something monstrous.