[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

door slammed open. He waddled through. Basdon darted in to stand at his side,
dripping sword ready for further action.
"Ah, so it's you, Laestarp," Jonker was saying conversationally. "Even in the
old days your ethics were dubious. So it has come to this."
Page 153
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
He was facing, across the room, a string-bearded magician in a filthy robe, a
man who impressed
Basdon at first as being abnormally tall, but after an instant he realized the
man was merely abnormally thin.
This apparition-like black-speller grinned maliciously. "Ah, Norjek the Fat,"
he sneered, calling Jonker by what Basdon guessed was his companion's real
name. "More ungainly than ever, I see. And in low company if my Art does not
mistake me, which it seldom does. A renegade god-warrior, no less."
"Where is Haslil?" Jonker rapped, with no jollity at all.
Laestarp made a grimace of mock regret. "It is sad, but the old girl's soul is
now in the care of magicians greater than ourselves," he said piously.
"Presumably she knew you were coming, and that gave her the will to be
stubborn to the end. She would not bend to my superior power, and as it
happens in such unfortunate cases, she broke at last, while you were
tormenting my poor servants outside."
The black-speller moved a few cautious steps, keeping his eyes on Jonker, and
drew a curtain from in front of a bed nook. The withered, half-naked body of a
crone lay there.
"As you can see," Laestarp added, "her spirit has taken its leave, despite my
efforts to restrain it here."
"You are a fool, Laestarp," said Jonker. "An overeducated fool."
Laestarp shrugged. "One does as best one can with his abilities, in a world
that grows less perfect with each day. But as you can see, good colleague,
whatever errand brought you here has come to naught.
You need not linger. I will tend to the crone's proper burning, along with
that of my cruelly dispatched servants. Let us hope not to meet again, Norjek,
as we both seem destined to lose tragically when we encounter."
Jonker's shoulders drooped and he glanced at Basdon. "The harm is done past
mending," he muttered.
"We may as well return home."
Basdon was cold with anger, and his aching leg did nothing to improve his
mood. Before him stood the stereotype of the vile Ungodly Magician, the
villain he had been taught to hate as a youthful worshipper, but the like of
which he had not previously met in Nenkunal.
"And leave this scum infesting the earth?" he gritted.
"His power to do harm is minimal, now that his dogs are gone," shrugged
Jonker, "and the universal geas is now too strong for him to enslave other
spirits. Let him live."
Basdon frowned in frustration, but he realized that Jonker had more
understanding than he.
"Very well. But you mentioned a small granddaughter of the sorceress . . ."
"Oh, yes," nodded Jonker, "I'd forgotten, the child. We must see her into
proper fosterage. Where is the child, Laestarp?"
The black-speller had paled. "Perhaps in the kitchen," he said with a show of
unconcern. "Don't trouble yourselves with her, good men. I will see her into
kindly keeping when the burnings are done."
Jonker studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed. "You are too filled with
sly intrigues to read well, Laestarp. But some things are obvious, and others
I can guess. Among the former is that you have not the air of a man whose
hopes have been confounded. Whatever your purpose here was, you still hope to
accomplish it. And the purpose I can guess at. We will have the grandchild, or
we will have you dead!"
"Oh, come-come, good colleague!" Laestarp half-whined. "Enough ill has been
done this day! Don't irk me by refusing my kindly inclination to let you
depart in peace."
"We will have the grandchild," Jonker repeated firmly.
Laestarp looked from one grim face to the other, then smiled. "You are not an
easy man to deceive, Norjek. The child is dead, too, but through no deed of
Page 154
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
mine. It was one of the strange new pestilences that struck her down. I
hesitated to tell you this, fearing that in your present mood you would blame
her death on me."
"The child is not dead," said Jonker.
"But . . . but . . ."
Jonker gestured to Basdon. "You were right, swordsman. Slay him while I
counter his Art."
Basdon moved forward.
"Good men!"
screeched Laestarp. "I will gladly share with you the trove by the Midsea!
There is plenty there for each of us, and "
Basdon's sword cut his plea short, and the black-speller's body, nearly
decapitated by the stroke, fell lifeless to the floor.
"Now you will suffer as you've inflicted, necromancer!" Jonker said in a loud
voice.
"He didn't hear you," said Basdon, wiping his blade on a drapery.
"He heard," Jonker replied. "I must find the child." He waddled swiftly across
the room and through a door. Basdon started to follow, then decided his help
was not sufficiently needed to keep him on his injured leg. He went to the bed
nook, tossed the crone's body off onto the floor, and lay down in her place.
His last thought was that he wouldn't have dreamed of treating a dead body
with such seeming disrespect while he had remained a worshipper. But a body,
after the spirit had departed, was merely so much meat . . .
He fell asleep . . . and had nightmares about dead bodies that were far more
than so much meat.
* * *
The smell of food woke him. He sat up and saw it was night. The room was lit [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

  • zanotowane.pl
  • doc.pisz.pl
  • pdf.pisz.pl
  • moje-waterloo.xlx.pl

    •