"Stephen Goldin - Storyteller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

against the might and power of the forces he evoked, Akar summoned to him five Marids, second most
powerful of all the levels of the djinni. These Marids were all brothers, and all so tall they had to stoop to
fit in the room. They had green, scaly skin, folded leathery wings like bats, and yellow eyes shining with
malevolence. Their lower tusks curled around the sides of their cheeks like a boar's and their long, thin
tails, with edges like swords, slashed the air angrily. They raged against being summoned by this mere
mortal, but the force of Akar's will bound them to his orders and they could not refuse him.

In his sternest voice Akar commanded the Marids to fly to the desert south of Sudarr and find where
Aeshma was. They were to observe what was going on and report back to him everything they learned.
He also told them to keep a discreet distance from Aeshma and try as best they could to remain hidden
from him. Akar knew the Marids were creatures normally bound to Aeshma by kinship and
temperament. He had placed them strongly under his control, but he didn't want to take the chance of
Aeshma wresting them away and learning prematurely of Akar's interest in him.

The five Marids flew off and Akar waited another week with the patience of a spider in the corner of her
web. Four Marids returned with their tale that they had found Aeshma and spied on him until he spotted
them. He tried to pull them under his control, but Akar's power over them was too strong. In a rage,
Aeshma had killed one of the Marid brothers, but the others returned to tell what they'd learned.

Aeshma had taken up residence in the palace of Rashwenath, along with a human whom he was
apparently serving. The palace had been restored to its original splendor all for the benefit of this one
man—but other than maintaining this fabulous palace, Aeshma was making no ventures into the wider
world.

Akar digested that news slowly. The man who'd freed Aeshma had been clever enough to slip a noose
around the daeva's abilities, and Aeshma was content for the moment not to fight for control. Knowing
what he did about daevas, Akar suspected that state of affairs would not continue for very long, and then
Aeshma would be on the loose once more. Further, Aeshma now knew there was someone in the world
who knew where he was and was interested in him—someone powerful enough to control Marids and
keep them from Aeshma's clutches. That forewarning made Aeshma extra dangerous to deal with.
Special steps would have to be taken.

Akar dismissed the Marids and, after due consideration, began his elaborate series of preparations. He
purged his body with laxatives and emetics for three days to cleanse the system of any impurities. He then
spent two weeks on a strict vegetarian diet, with the meals rigorously prepared in certain steps at certain
times of the day according to special arcane formulæ. Akar spent most of his time in his vast library,
refreshing his memory on a wide variety of spells and secrets by having his servants read selected
passages from ancient manuscripts. He had one of his Jinn fly to the nearest village and steal a goat,
which Akar promptly sacrificed on his private altar; he drank some of the goat's blood while it was still
warm, and the rest he smeared over his naked body.

Most of his resting time was spent, not in sleep, but in deep meditative trances that cleansed his mind of
impurities the way the purges had cleansed his body. His breathing slowed, his pulse rate dropped, and
his soul stored up energy for the big struggle he knew lay ahead of him.

After these weeks of preparation, when he was at last ready for the ordeal he must endure, the wizard
Akar walked into his newly reordered storerooms and picked carefully from among the tools, powders,
and amulets in his possession, until he had precisely those that could benefit him the most in a wide
variety of emergency situations. He bundled his implements neatly into a tiny pouch around his neck, then
left the storeroom and walked up the spiral stairway to the flat roof of Shahdur Castle.