"Craig Shaw Gardner - Ebenezum 03 - A Night in the Netherhell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gardner Craig Shaw)

taken by the Netherhells.”

Snarks gave a muted cheer. The rest of our company glared at him.

“Sorry,” the demon said, embarrassed. “Old habits.”

“Oh, Wuntie!” Alea ran up to me breathlessly. “What a diplomat!”

I smiled somewhat foolishly. Alea was an attractive young woman, and, as a professional vaudeville
entertainer from Vushta, much more worldly than myself. And yet, long ago, when I was first apprenticed
to Ebe-nezum, Alea and I had shared an innocent young love. Even now, gazing deep into her blue eyes
—

“Wuntvor!” Norei was at my side again. “We must have a plan. What shall we do?”

“Yes, Wuntie!” Alea chimed in. “You’ve gotten us this far. What next?”

I cleared my throat. The young women pressed on either side of me, both far too close. Norei
sometimes had trouble with Alea’s pet names for me, or the way Alea would refer to things the two of us
had done long ago, or the way Alea occasionally treated me as her own personal property. It didn’t
matter how often I explained that everything that had happened with Alea occurred before I had even
met Norei. Well, almost everything. Could I help it if Alea was an attractive and enthusiastic woman?
According to Norei, I certainly could.

Norei pinched the flesh of my upper arm in a manner almost too hard to be playful. But I knew that
the events around us here had taken a great toll on the young witch, as surely as I knew that she was my
own true love. And, unlike my childish infatuation with Alea, what I felt for Norei was a truly mature love,
for in the weeks we had been on our quest I had gained experience, responsibility, and insight.

“Doom!” Hendrek said to the three of us. “What shall we do now?”

I had no idea.

“Indeed,” I said, stalling for time.

There was a honking sound behind me. I spun about, my stout oak walking staff ready to be used as a
weapon if need be. Ebenezum blew mightily into his robes.

“Indeed,” the wizard remarked, looking past our party to the somewhat befuddled Snorphosio. “So, if
I heard you correctly, the Netherhells have captured Vushta?”

The aged professor nodded rapidly. “That is my surmise. Of course, I am basing this theory upon
incomplete evidence. Perhaps my fears are ungrounded. Perhaps something less dreadful has happened
to my city than I suspect, some other rationale may be divined from the evidence at hand. For you see”
—Snorphosio paused, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper— “there is one final event that has
not yet occurred, one last bit of evidence that, were it to be untrue, would show me for the pessimist that
I am. Without this last event, there is still hope. Perhaps Vushta can still be saved. Perhaps all of the city’
s inhabitants will not be cursed to eternal, unspeakable damnation, the true extent of which is probably
beyond human imagining. If this final catastrophe does not occur, we can still hold onto a thin ray of hope
that perhaps the great city, with all its learning, its diverse people, its thousand forbidden delights, might