[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the shaft from below and presumably no one had interest in the frostwargs
Page 23
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
except Tathagres' henchman.
Fenced by the razor edges of thousands of crystals, Anskiere was in a poor
position for confrontation.
The staff could not be quenched to glean any cover from darkness, and by now
the brilliance of the wards might have warned the enemy sor-cerer he was not
alone in the shaft. Before the sorcerer caught him, Anskiere chose retreat,
hoping to reach the narrow place where the corridor crooked, barely a hundred
paces higher. Anguished by thoughts of a small child's tears, he hurried, and
barely felt the sting of a crystal against his calf, or the blood which welled
above the top of his boot.
"Why run?" said a voice from below. "By now the tide will have sealed off the
entrance."
Anskiere leaped the last tiers of crystals and whirled, pant-ing, beneath the
curve of the upper tunnel.
Outside the radiance of the staff lay darkness. The sorcerer had not rounded
the corner below; he possibly had yet to notice the wards stood complete, a
piece of luck Anskiere had wished for but dared not assume. He seated himself
on an outcrop just past the place where the tunnel narrowed. The staff's
confined aura bathed him in a raw light. Under similar circumstances, Anskiere
recalled, Ivain would have smiled.
Slowly the orange glow in the distance brightened and ac-quired the harsh
edges of open flame. Light danced up from below, trapped in the hearts of a
faery forest of crystals.
"Fires!" swore the sorcerer. He had at last sighted the wards. Picking his
next steps with care, he said, "So that's how you killed Omer." And he paused
and cursed for a minute and a half.
Ivain perhaps would have chuckled. Positioned at the mouth of the tunnel,
Anskiere derived little satisfaction from his en-emy's predicament. Blocked by
solid stone, the sorcerer could not force the
Stormwarden out of the shaft without direct contact with a staff whose aura
was instantly fatal to anyone unattuned to its forces.
"You can't win," said the sorcerer. He raised his torch, haloed by a haze of
reflections. "The staff will eventually burn itself out."
Anskiere did not state the obvious, that well before it dimmed the staff could
be reduced to safer levels if only his powers were freed. Aware he was
protected, he waited for his enemy to reveal whatever plot had drawn him into
the cave.
The sorcerer stopped. He threw back his hood, exposing features polished like
a skull's. "The girl will suffer well for this."
"Can you contact Tathagres through rock, then?" Anskiere said mildly. But his
voice missed its usual note.
"Fires!" The sorcerer gestured angrily. "That ward won't block me forever. I'm
not fond of patience.
Perhaps we could settle things more quickly."
Anskiere did not reply.
The sorcerer impaled his torch on a crystal and gazed up-ward, his attitude
one of regret. "I think you should be taught a lesson, Cloud-shifter."
He lifted his hands, and light blossomed, firing the crystals into a thousand
pinpoint reflections. The cavern blazed, sud-denly lit by a pattern delineated
in the air. Spread before him, Anskiere saw the spell which confined his
powers revealed in geometric splendor. And his trained eye noted, like sour
notes in a counterpoint, the gaps one sorcerer's death had torn through the
structure, weakening it.
The display was a blatant invitation to challenge; and also a fully baited
trap. Anskiere's hand jerked once against the wood of his staff. Without
weather sense, or magic, he could not explore the dangers any resistance might
unleash. He rose slowly, burdened by responsibility for the children from
Imrill Kand whose loyalties brought them to share his fate. Bound, he could
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
not save them. Free, he had a chance, if a slim one, to counteract the threat
his aggression would spring. The marred pattern taunted him. One sorcerer had
underestimated him; he had no choice but hope that the second had done the
same. "By the
Vaere," he murmured. "Let me be right."
"Won't you bid for your powers?" the sorcerer urged; He pitched his confidence
to antagonize.
Anskiere gathered his will and calmly thrust his con-sciousness into the spell
which spread like a web across the dark. He thought he heard laughter in the
moment before his mind caught in the strands. But whether the sound arose from
the sorcerer or from an older memory of Ivain, he could not tell. Power snared
his awareness like birdlime; fierce opposition blocked all effort to fathom
the forces aligned against his inner control. Anskiere never hesitated. The
forces which held him were flawed. Poised on that knowledge, he condensed his
con-sciousness to a pinpoint and darted through a gap. The move triggered a
sharp blaze of heat. The trap had sprung. Anskiere had no choice but discover
the sorcerer's intent swiftly, and try to unbalance his enemy through brash
action. Since the threat had been left linked through each break in the spell,
Anskiere embraced the pattern's entirety and rammed thoughts like hot
needles across every weakness he encountered. Then he withdrew.
Aware once more of the cold illumination from his staff, he shivered, gripped
by the distinct impression he had raised a holocaust. Seconds later, when a
high, keening wail arose from the bowels of the tunnel, he understood why. The [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]