"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 2 - When True Night Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

We now knew that there was a human
sorcerer allied to the demons we sought, and
we did what we could to misdirect his Sight.
For a time it seemed that we were successful
- and then, amidst the snow-clad peaks of the
rakhland mountains, he struck at us. Senzei
Reese was tricked into going off alone and
was killed, gruesomely; may his soul find
peace in whatever pagan afterlife he created
for himself. Tarrant was nearly killed as well,
and in the end it was only our unity as a
company and the strength of the holy Fire
with which you had entrusted me that
enabled us to reach our enemy's border alive.

There, on Hesseth's advice, we sought the
aid of a rakhene tribe native to the region,
whose ancestors had descended belowground
during a period of inclement weather
(possibly the Small Ice Age of the seventh
century?) and remained there ever since. I
append notes and sketches in quantity. You
will note that they have adapted thoroughly
to their dark environment, and now have few
features in common with their aboveground
brethren. It is a jarring lesson in how fast
evolution works on this planet, when man is
not present to interfere.

Using their underground tunnels we
invaded the enemy's domain. There we
learned that the leader of Ciani's assailants
was human, a woman "from the east" whose
thirst for power drove her to imprison and
feed upon the souls of adepts, filtering the
earth-power through their pain. In the end it
was her own madness that we turned against
her, using her obsession to blind her to our
purpose while we set loose the very earth that
she had bound. The resulting earthquake
destroyed her citadel and killed many of her
servants, while the surge of earth-fae that
accompanies all such upheavals drowned her
in a mortal excess of the very power she
lusted after.

By the grace of God and the power of the
holy Fire, Ciani, Hesseth, and I escaped the
ruins of the madwoman's citadel without