The Reign of Magic. Wolf Awert
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Название: The Reign of Magic
Автор: Wolf Awert
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
Серия: Pentamuria
isbn: 9783959591713
isbn:
“What did you just do? Just now?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing,” Nill answered as innocently as he felt. “I would like to know how the mages intend to stop their destinies from happening.”
The druid exhaled, shuddering. “If you don’t learn to control your abilities quickly, you won’t even have a destiny.”
“That bad?”
“That bad!”
Dakh-Ozz-Han hummed a melody to himself. The notes came from deep within his throat and had little to do with music as Nill knew it, but he could not resist their effect. He felt his energy draining and had difficulty in staying upright. “What are you doing with me?” he yawned.
“It was a difficult day. We will talk more tomorrow.”
Nill agreed, but before he fell asleep for good he jerked up again.
“Wait!”
Nill had remembered what he had wanted to tell Dakh-Ozz-Han all along. First the sadness, then Dakh’s tale, then the strange discourse about truth and lies had pushed all else aside, and so he burst out: “There is an ancient magic in this forest!”
“Leave it for now,” the druid mumbled.
“No, no, I felt it. It was in the movement of the branches. It looked like they were reaching for the light at first, but really it was a dance of souls. I danced with them, and I know it wasn’t about sunlight any longer. I felt like an olm or a dragon, or a…” His eyes fell shut and he heard Dakh’s answer as a distant grumble. One word managed to get through to him.
“The tough warriors are very old,” the druid said. “Their memories reach back to the parts of time that man had no access to. It is possible that they granted you some. You seem more accessible than most people.”
“Accessible”: there was that word again. Esara had said the same after the runes had danced and he had fought the demon. “What does accessible mean?”
Whatever else the druid said to him, he did not hear it.
The next morning they had left the Valley of Unhappy Trees behind them and were glad to be back in the sun. With every step some of the despair lifted, and before long Nill was singing loudly.
“Vitality is best when it comes back,” the druid said simply.
They marched towards the rising sun, the unending mountains to their left in the distance, a small jagged crown on the horizon, and on their right the familiar hills that looked like the backs of a grazing herd of rams from this distance. The landscape kept to its yellowish green and the shrubs and bushes looked like those they had passed already, back near the village. The only things that had changed in the forest were Nill and Dakh-Ozz-Han. Nill had left behind his timidity before the mighty man, and Dakh had begun to teach Nill. He mostly did this with short signs, little more than a nod of the head.
Once, Dakh stopped moving suddenly and craned his neck. Nill looked around but could not see what had caught Dakh’s attention. Once the druid had shown no obvious signs of wanting to keep walking and the calm of the moment had spread across the hill, Nill heard the wind. It was blowing across the land differently than usual, and as such sounded unfamiliar. Nill nodded, the druid smiled, and they continued their walk. That was all that happened. But what could cause the wind to blow differently? The question stayed in Nill’s mind all day.
Chapter 3
In Metal World a foul-tempered sorcerer straightened his sumptuous but threadbare robe. The glory of days long past seemed a constant reminder in the small stone house where he resided with his son, his son’s wife and their son.
“You should be forging more weapons than tools,” he grumbled in the direction of the dimly glowing fire. “Magical weapons, armor and helmets.”
“Leave it, father. The war is over, and the people of the area need the tools more than they need weapons.”
“You fool!” The old man shook his fist. “The war never ends. And even if it subsides for a while, then it is just the precursor to another war. And if you were to use the gifts bestowed upon you, you would know what awaits us; alas, you care more to shut your senses to the outside world and entomb yourself away from the truth than to take your rightful place.”
The blacksmith was used to his father’s volatile temper and answered calmly: “Leave it be, father, I have enough tasks to see us through the winter. I will take care of our other worries once they actually exist.”
The old sorcerer snorted. “In spite of all his weaknesses, your son has more backbone than you. He is a true Chron-Lai. Fetch my grandson.”
But the grandson was more than a day’s march away from the stone house. He rushed through the dusk like a gray khanwolf, afraid of coming too late. His goal was somewhere between fire and wood. He avoided settlements and merchant roads and tried to regain some lost time with daring leaps down steep mountainsides. More than once he barely managed to escape the falling rubble he himself had set in motion with his foolhardy movements.
In the darkness he felt safe. The moon only illuminated the ridges and cliffs ever so slightly. He knew about this; but no hunter can catch running wild in the night. The boy welcomed the moonlight, and so he kept running towards the fire until the exhaustion forced him into a short, uneasy rest.
The Oas’ journey to Ringwall dragged on. Grimala lead the cavalcade and her many breaks decided their speed. Quiwill and Feirie, two of Tiriwi’s mothers, had joined their daughter on her journey and took the opportunity to refill their stocks of seeds, leaves and roots. A young Oa from the neighboring village was there to carry Grimala’s luggage, three more women were responsible for all the equipment that a traveling group needed in terms of food and shelter. Grimala had carefully planned everything, for the steppe that lay between Ringwall and their home forest gave little shelter and seemed dangerous to all Oas.
Tiriwi was the only one who did not need to bother with any of this. She had been chosen, and it was she who traveled by order of her people, and with their wishes. When had anything like this happened before? Her luggage, consisting of a small knapsack and a broad shoulder bag, was carried for her by others. She did not need to partake in setting up camp, nor did she have to help with the cooking. Her company sought to outdo each other with new ways to help Tiriwi, and in the end she had nothing to do herself.
But as comfortable as the journey was physically, the heavy burden of responsibility weighed down on her. Since their departure from the small hamlet Grimala had been constantly offering advice on how to behave in Ringwall, what she should ask for, what she must observe and especially how important her task was for the village and her entire people. And every day Grimala came up with more. As if that were not enough, Tiriwi’s mothers also bombarded her with well-meaning words – although the things they said had more to do with the daily routine of an unknown area than with the Mages of Ringwall and the fate of Pentamuria.
And so the small group crawled on tightly winding paths and later on wide roads, strewn with sand or rough stones, on to Ringwall. They learned that wanderers who did not dodge the fast carriages with lordly coats-of-arms quickly enough made painful acquaintance with the iron-bound СКАЧАТЬ