Peril’s Gate. Janny Wurts
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Peril’s Gate - Janny Wurts страница 21
Название: Peril’s Gate
Автор: Janny Wurts
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Ужасы и Мистика
Серия: The Wars of Light and Shadow
isbn: 9780007318087
isbn:
Kharadmon saw at once that the ongoing exodus would not dwindle into attrition. The wraiths in the lead sensed the horde crowding their heels. They would scarcely turn back, to be slashed and torn in a rage of psychic aggression. Their fellows would attack at the first sign of weakness, or the apparent uncertainty of retreat.
Gently, slowly, Kharadmon withdrew his awareness from the spelled cipher of warning. Freed at long last to react to his findings, he battled a wave of stark fear. No safe means existed to deter those wraiths strung down the back trail of spent spells. Once those pioneers sampled life on Athera, whether they encountered defenseless prey or the drawn lines of vigorous defense, their bloodlust would rise in earnest. Their frenzy would swiftly draw rampant thousands, excited by starveling need and the prospect of unconquered territory. Nor was Athera’s hampered Fellowship equipped to handle an invasion with the requisite, seamless subtlety.
Alone in the icy void between stars, Kharadmon faced implacable fact. Resolution of the crisis at hand demanded no less than the diligent work of two Sorcerers: one to mask Marak, blindsiding the massed entities still seething at large on the wasted planet. Only then could the inbound wraiths be reeled in and contained, each spirit laboriously winnowed separate and Named, then restored to its shattered identity.
Nor would the next likely option bear weight, that a masterbard’s talent might be pressed to assist. Arithon s’Ffalenn was already set in grave jeopardy. If his flight to reach sanctuary at Ithamon succeeded, if the ancient protections there let him stand down Desh-thiere’s curse, too many unknown factors must still be put to the extreme test. Yet Kharadmon foresaw a dearth of alternatives. Paravian wards were already proved to restrain invading wraiths. In theory, a masterbard’s trained gift of empathy could sound out and define the identity of misaligned spirits. Through Arithon’s matured talents, the keyed tones of compassion could open the means to rename Marak’s wraiths and restore their lost human awareness.
Yet until the s’Ffalenn prince achieved safety, and unless Luhaine received the vital assistance to attend the damaged protections at Rockfell, Kharadmon could do nothing more than engage a stopgap measure to buy time.
At least he had thoroughly tested the method to meet today’s raw necessity. That knowledge granted no comfort as the Sorcerer launched past the interlaced construct of wards that stood sentinel for Athera. His journey dispatched him on a spiraling course through the chartless deeps of the void. He must first intercept the wraiths’ course, then deploy spells to delay them, blind them, deflect their track into intricate, stalled circles. Start to finish, with no slack for error, his work must be wrought with seamless finesse. His adversaries must never suspect their straight course had been deliberately tangled. Nor could the waylaid pack of wraiths be permitted the opening to sense the bold power that arranged their manipulation.
Kharadmon had suffered pursuit once before. Evasion had required help from Sethvir and Luhaine, their paired strengths backed by the mighty defenses laid into Althain Tower. All three Sorcerers had barely survived the ordeal with their faculties free of possession.
Nor were the stakes this time one whit less threatening. Kharadmon grasped the terrible crux. At all costs, his memories and his knowledge of arcane practice must be guarded. He must not fall to the wraiths’ obsessed drive to absorb conquered victims in assimilation.
Winter 5670
Trackers
The hour before dawn, the brick guardhouse in Jaelot held a stew of relentless activity. The clangor of metal as men sorted arms reechoed through shouted orders, and the tangle of raised voices, arguing. Just arrived on the threshold, his old man’s quaver overwhelmed by the rush and commotion, the Lord Mayor of the city stood irate. Arms crossed on his chest, and both feet wrapped in flannel to cushion his limping gout, he howled at the browbeaten coachman who took the place of his usual, effete manservant. ‘I don’t care whistling blazes who you find to ask questions. Someone hereabouts will find me the guard captain, if I have to seal a writ for his arrest!’
Windburned and irritable from the buffeting storm, the coachman gave way with ill grace. The first boy he hailed failed to hear his bull bellow through the thundering rumble of supply barrels three lackeys rolled across the plank flooring. In the maelstrom of arrivals and frenetic activity, nobody paused to note livery colors, or spared proper time to grace the prerogatives due to servants of ruling rank.
The irritated coachman was forced to jump clear to avoid being milled down, an ungainly leap that slapped his wet coattails against the spindle shanks of his calves.
The next boy he collared spun around in his tracks, staggered under a double load of horse harness. ‘Let be, sir! I’ll catch a lashing if the last of these bridles aren’t cleaned. The riders have orders to leave at first light!’
‘Impertinent wretch!’ Run out of patience, the coachman grabbed rein leather and twisted, noosing the boy by the throat. ‘Do you see, over there? That’s his lordship, the mayor. He’s the one asking your service. Now find me somebody who can flag the guard captain’s attention, or I promise, you won’t live long enough to catch whippings, or carry anything, anywhere.’
The boy with some difficulty swiveled his head. His ruddy cheeks paled as he noticed the glittering personage, fuming red-faced on the fringes. ‘My lord, forgive.’ He unloaded the harness in a jangling heap and scampered, the coachman left cursing as he unlooped his feet from the mess of dropped headstalls and rein leather.
Through the subsequent wait, the mayor steamed, silent. The guardhouse reechoed to its hammer-beamed ceiling with the rushed noise of men under pressure. Their snappish talk came and went through the continuous dinning screel, as the armorer’s boy sharpened blades and pole weapons on a pumice wheel spun by a half-wit.
At due length, a breathless equerry dashed up. Shouting, he offered to escort his Lordship of Jaelot into the guard captain’s presence.
The mayor stamped a gout-ridden foot, then winced at the twinge of sharp pain. ‘Damn your impertinence, it’s himself should be coming to me.’
Since the harried equerry looked likely to bolt on the pretext of some other errand, the coachman entreated, ‘My lord! I beg you, please follow.’
The mayor shot back a rankled glare, then embraced better sense and gave way. He waved the equerry onward and gimped headlong into the tumult.
The disgruntled party tacked an erratic course through mounds of provisions, overseen by anxious clerks busy checking off lists on their tally slates. They sidestepped, and just missed getting skewered by a man bearing bundles of furled banners on poles with lethally sharpened steel finials. Men polished armor, fitted spurs with new straps, or checked stitching on targets and scabbards. By the snatched words of conversation and the bellowed instructions that surfaced through racketing mayhem, the mayor learned that a cavalcade of five hundred prepared to ride northward at daybreak.
‘I gave no such order!’ he huffed over the press, buffeted by fellows lugging a field tent who failed to look where they were going.
The lanky coachman shortened his stride, belatedly reminded that his lordship suffered from СКАЧАТЬ