Silverthorn. Raymond E. Feist
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Название: Silverthorn
Автор: Raymond E. Feist
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Героическая фантастика
isbn: 9780007370221
isbn:
Laurie cried, ‘It has the use of its arm once more! It’s healing itself!’ The creature was upon them in a leap. Suddenly Arutha felt himself going down as someone shoved him aside. In a blur of images, Arutha saw Laurie ducking away from the blow that would have torn Arutha’s head from his shoulders. Arutha rolled away and came to his feet beside Jimmy the Hand. The boy had knocked him out of harm’s way. Beyond Jimmy, Arutha could see Father Nathan.
The bull-necked priest approached the monster, his left hand held upright, palm forward. The creature somehow sensed the priest’s approach, for it turned its attention from Arutha and spun to face Nathan.
The centre of Nathan’s hand began to glow, then shine with a fierce white light that cast a visible beam upon the moredhel, which stood transfixed. From its torn lips a low moan was emitted. Then Nathan began to chant.
A high shriek erupted from the moredhel, and it cowered, covering sightless eyes from the glare of Nathan’s mystic light. Its voice could be heard, low and bubbling. ‘It burns … it burns!’ The stocky cleric took a step forward, forcing the creature to shamble backwards. The thing looked nothing mortal, bleeding thick, nearly coagulated blood from a hundred wounds, large pieces of flesh and clothing dangling from its form. It hunkered lower and cried out, ‘I burn!’
Then a cold wind blew in the room and the creature shrieked, loud enough to startle even seasoned, battle-ready soldiers. Guards looked furiously about, seeking the source of some nameless horror that could be felt on every side.
The creature suddenly rose up, as if new power had come into it. Its right hand shot out, grabbing at the source of the burning light, Nathan’s left hand. Fingers and talon-like fingers interlaced, and with a searing sound the creature’s hand began to smoke. The moredhel drew back its left hand to strike a blow at the cleric, but as it uncoiled to strike, Nathan shouted a word unknown to the others in the room, and the creature faltered and groaned. Nathan’s voice rang out, filling the room with the sounds of mystic prayer and holy magic. The creature froze for an instant, then trembled in place. Nathan stepped up the urgency of his incantation and the creature reeled as if being struck a mighty blow, and smoke rose from its body. Nathan called down the power of his goddess, Sung the White, the deity of purity, his voice hoarse and strained. A loud moaning, seeming to come from a great distance, escaped from the moredhel’s mouth and it shuddered again. Locked in this mystic battle, Nathan lifted his shoulders as if he were struggling to move away a great weight, and the moredhel fell to its knees. Its right hand bent backwards as Nathan’s voice droned on. Beads of sweat rolled down the priest’s forehead and the cords on his neck stood out. Blisters rose on the creature’s ragged flesh and exposed muscle and it began an ululating cry. A sizzling sound and the smell of cooking meat filled the room. Thick oily smoke poured off its body, and one guard turned his head and vomited. Nathan’s eyes grew wide as he exerted the force of his will upon this creature. Slowly they swayed, the creature’s flesh cracking as it blackened and crisped from Nathan’s magic. The moredhel bent backwards under the force of the priest’s grip, and suddenly blue energy coursed over its blackening body. Nathan released his hold and the creature toppled sideways, flames erupting from its eyes, mouth, and ears. Soon flames engulfed the body and reduced it quickly to ashes, choking the room with a foul, greasy odour.
Nathan slowly turned to face Arutha, and the Prince saw a man suddenly aged. The cleric’s eyes were wide and sweat poured down his face. In a dry croak he said, ‘Highness, it is done.’ Taking one slow step, then another, towards the Prince, Nathan smiled weakly. Then he fell forward, to be caught by Arutha before he struck the floor.
• CHAPTER FOUR •
Revelations
BIRDS SANG TO WELCOME THE NEW DAWN.
Arutha, Laurie, Jimmy, Volney, and Gardan sat in the Prince’s private audience chamber awaiting word of Nathan and the High Priestess. The temple guards had carried the priestess to a guest chamber and stood guard while healers summoned from her temple attended her. They had been with her all night, while members of Nathan’s order tended him in his quarters.
Everyone in the room had been rendered silent by the horrors of the night, and all were reluctant to speak of it. Laurie stirred first from the numbness, leaving his chair to move to a window.
Arutha’s eyes followed Laurie’s movement, but his mind was wrestling with a dozen unanswerable questions. Who or what was seeking his death? And why? But more important to him than his own safety was the question of what threat this posed for Lyam, Carline, and the others due to arrive soon. And most of all, was there any risk to Anita? A dozen times over the last few hours Arutha had considered postponing the wedding.
Laurie sat down on a couch next to the half-dozing Jimmy. Quietly he asked, ‘Jimmy, how did you know to fetch Father Nathan when the High Priestess herself was helpless?’
Jimmy stretched and yawned. ‘It was something I remembered from my youth.’ At this, Gardan laughed and the tension in the room lessened. Even Arutha ventured a half-smile as Jimmy continued. ‘I was given into the tutelage of one Father Timothy, a cleric of Astalon, for a time. Occasionally one boy or another is allowed to do this. It’s a sign the Mockers have great expectations for the boy,’ he said proudly. ‘I stayed only to learn my letters and numbers, but along the way I chanced to pick up a few other bits of knowledge.
‘I remembered a discourse on the nature of the gods Father Timothy had given once – though it had almost put me to sleep. According to that worthy, there is an opposition of forces, positive and negative forces that are sometimes called good and evil. Good cannot cancel good, nor evil cancel evil. To balk an agent of evil, you need an agency of good. The High Priestess is counted a servant of dark powers by most people and could not hold the creature at bay. I hoped the father could oppose the creature, as Sung and her servants are seen as being of “good” demeanour. I really didn’t know if it was possible, but I couldn’t see standing around while that thing chewed up the palace guards one by one.’
Arutha said, ‘It proved a good guess.’ His tone revealed approval of Jimmy’s quick thinking.
A guard came into the room and said, ‘Highness, the priest is recovered and sends word for you. He begs you to come to his quarters.’ Arutha nearly leapt from his chair and strode out of the chamber with the others close behind.
For over a century custom had provided that the palace of the Prince of Krondor contain a temple with a shrine to each of the gods, so that whoever was a guest, no matter which of the major deities he worshipped, would find a place of spiritual comfort close by. The order seeing to the temple’s care would change from time to time as different advisers to the Prince came and went. It was Nathan and his acolytes who cared for the temple under Arutha’s administration, as they had during Erland’s. The priest’s quarters lay behind the temple, and Arutha entered through the large, vaulted hall. At the opposite end of the nave a door could be glimpsed behind the bema that contained the shrine to the four greater gods. Arutha strode towards the door, his boots clacking upon the stone floor as he walked past the shrines to the lesser gods on either side of the temple. As he approached the door to Nathan’s quarters, Arutha could see it was open and glimpsed movement inside.
He entered the priest’s quarters and Nathan’s acolytes stepped aside. Arutha was struck by the austere look of the room, nearly a cell without personal property or decoration. The only nonutilitarian item visible was a personal statuette of Sung, represented as a lovely young woman in a long white robe, resting on a СКАЧАТЬ