"Paul S. Kemp - Erevis Cale 3 - Midnight's Mask" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kemp Paul S)

Midnight’s Mask • 7
chamber. The pool was as black as jet. The air felt heavy
and still, threatening.
“Something akin to the Underdark but on the Plane
of Shadow, I would guess,” Magadon offered as he stood.
“Do not use the water to fill your skins and do not touch
the walls. That’s some kind of lichen, but I’ve never seen
its like before.”
Jak nodded, his eyes thoughtful. He looked up at Cale.
“Are you are all right? The wounds, they’re healed?”
When Cale regarded him to answer, Jak recoiled
slightly but masked it quickly.
“Dark, but I cannot get used to the way your eyes look
here,” the little man said.
Cale felt himself flush.
“I’m all right,” he said. He extended a hand and pulled
Jak to his feet. Cale put his fingers through the hole Riven
had made in the front of his cloak and armor. He had simi-
lar holes in the back. The holes in his flesh were closed.
“What about you two?”
Both Jak and Magadon were pale, exhausted, and
obviously wounded. Claw rakes had opened cloaks, rent
armor, and torn flesh.
“I’m well enough,” Magadon said, and moved to the
edge of the pool. The guide knelt and stared at the water.
He dipped his fingers, smelled them, and wiped them
clean on his breeches.
Jak said, “I am all right, too. We killed one of the
slaadi, Cale. The small one. The other one. . . .”
Magadon stood and finished for Jak. “In our hurry to
get to you, we left the other alive but enspelled. He may
have died in the cavern’s collapse.”
Cale doubted it, but kept his thought to himself.
“We should have killed him,” Jak said, and reached
into his belt pouch for his pipe. “Just to be sure.” He came
out with a wooden pipe, the one he had given to Riven,
the one Riven had thrown back at him atop the tower. He
must have picked it up before they fled. He eyed it for a

8 • Paul S. Kemp
moment, then threw it past Magadon and into the pool,
where it vanished. He withdrew his other pipe—the ivory
bowled affair—and popped it into his mouth. He chewed
its end in agitation, but did not light up. Around the pipe
stem he said, “I’m personally going to drive an armspan
of steel into Drasek Riven’s gut for what he did.” For
Magadon’s benefit, Jak added, “I’ve done it before, you
know. Treacherous Zhent bastard.”
Cale thought the little man’s anger might be mis-
placed. To Magadon, Cale asked tentatively, “Do you . . .