"2 STONE OF TEAR" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goodkind Terry)

Walls of flame shot up in front of it. The air smelled like smoke and roared with noise. The thing stepped through the wall of fire. Zedd made another, and it stepped through that, too.

When the wizard started walking again, it stopped by a short, vine-covered wall, watching. Fat vines ripped off the wall by themselves and grew suddenly longer. They whipped around the dark thing as it stood there, tangling all around it. Zedd was almost up with them.

'Where are we going?' Chase asked him.

Zedd turned. He looked tired. 'Let's see if we can shut it in here.'

The thing tore at the vines as they pulled it to the ground, and was slicing through them with its sharp claws as the three of them went through the big doorway. Chase and Zedd each took one of the golden metal doors and pushed it shut.

From the other side came a howl, and then a loud crash. A big dent popped out in the door, knocking Zedd to the ground. Chase put a hand on each door and put all his weight against them as the thing pounded from the other side.

Horrible screeches came through the metal as the thing clawed at the door. Chase was covered with sweat and blood. Zedd jumped to his feet and helped Chase hold the doors closed.

A claw stuck through the crack between the two doors and slid down; then another came out from underneath. Through the door, Rachel could hear the thing laughing. Chase grunted as he pushed. The doors creaked.

The wizard stood back and held out his arms, with his fingers up, like he was pushing against the air. The creaking stopped. The thing howled louder.

Zedd grabbed Chase's sleeve. 'Get out of here.'

Chase backed away from the doors. 'Is that going to hold it?'

'I don't think so. If it comes for you, walk. Running or standing still attracts its attention. Tell anyone else you see.'

'Zedd, what is that thing?'

There was another loud crash and another big dent popped out in the door. The tips of claws broke through the metal and made rips in the door. The noise it made hurt Rachel's ears.

'Go! Now!'

Chase snatched her up with an arm around her waist and started running down the hall.


CHAPTER 2

Zedd idly fingered the stone through the coarse cloth of his robe, where it was nestled in an inner pocket, as he watched the claws pull back through the rips in the metal. He turned and watched the boundary warden carrying Rachel down the hall. They hadn't gone more than a few dozen strides when one of the doors flew off its hinges with a horrific boom. The strong hinges shattered as if they were made of clay.

Zedd dove out of the way, the gold-clad iron door just missing him as it flew across the hall and crashed against the polished granite wall, sending shards of metal flying and stone dust boiling down the hall. Zedd rolled to his feet and ran.

The screeling bounded out of the Garden of Life and into the hall. Its body was hardly more than a squat skeleton covered in a veneer of dry, crisp, blackened skin. Like a corpse that had dried in the sun for years. White bone stuck out in places where the skin, hanging in flaps here and there, had been torn in the fight, but that didn't seem to bother the creature; it was a thing of the underworld, and not hindered by all the frailties of life. There was no blood.

If it could be torn up enough, or hacked apart, maybe it could be stopped, but it was awfully quick. And magic certainly wasn't doing it much harm. It was a creature of Subtractive Magic; Additive Magic was just being absorbed into it like a sponge.

Maybe it could be harmed with Subtractive Magic, but Zedd had nothing of that half of the gift. No wizard in the last few thousand years did. Some might have had the calling for the Subtractive - Darken Rahl was proof of that - but none had had the gift for it.

No, his magic wasn't going to stop this thing. At least, the wizard thought, not directly. But maybe indirectly?

Zedd walked backward as the screeling watched with blinking, bewildered eyes. Now, he thought, while it's standing still.