Jess Lebow - The Colors of Magic Anthology

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Jess Lebow - The Colors of Magic Anthology» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Фэнтези, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

The Colors of Magic Anthology: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «The Colors of Magic Anthology»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

The Colors of Magic Anthology — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «The Colors of Magic Anthology», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

The shouts of the players on the sidelines continued as the fight dragged on. Money had been bet on how long the fight would last. Money had been placed on whose face would show strain first.

The monsters remained locked. I couldn't find a chink in the magic to extract my mantis from his. He couldn't find it. I felt him struggling. Dumoss's magic was truly impressive. It didn't matter that I could feel his control. He could even use that against me, if I became distracted by trying to read his mox'es rather than concentrating on my own.

More money was placed, money for first limb, money for first move, money for anything. I grew more relaxed, more assured of victory for Annise. Everything was for her. Luck flowed to me to beat Dumoss. I knew it, I felt it. His mantis ripped a limb from mine, repositioned itself, and grabbed my monster's head from another angle. The shouts made my ears ring as if I'd been struck in the head. Our faces showed nothing. My mantis cracked a leg of his, and the magic shifted again, farther away.

Then the real fight began. The phantasms fought openly, ripping and tearing to the shouts of bettors on all sides. Our monsters were chipped through like walls of old stone. My control was better, my anger brighter, my magic stronger. I did not let up, I forced my mantis to attack.

Magic moved from the ring, and the other mantis seemed reenergized. It hacked another limb from mine, and I stared hard into the eyes of Dumoss, letting him know with a glance what would come next. I prepared to use the pendant.

But something in my blood stirred, drawn toward Dumoss… no, it was not toward Dumoss, but behind him. Someone stood in the shadow. Light from the flaring brazier glared in my eyes. I couldn't be stopped now, not when Annise would have everything she deserved, everything I could give her. My mantis bit into the neck of the other.

I fell to my knees, my hands shaking. The luck, on that I could depend. All this magic, all this luck would save me, prevent me from losing my concentration. I would have revenge on Dumoss for stealing Annise. I, alone, challenged fate, dared to care for another. The city killed and left the corpses on the dust-covered streets.

I forced my eyes to remain locked on Dumoss's. Clenched, my teeth ached. Blood boiled and pounded at my temples. My chest constricted.

Annise stood behind Dumoss. I couldn't see her face, but her hair glowed red in the firelight. I felt her control on me, strong, seeking the root of my magic, my spirit. She was choking my life, crushing me with a great weight.

She couldn't kill me here. There were protections against such things in an arena. My magic was stronger.

From the pendant I took the power, the pure magic. I rode the crest of her feeble strength back to her source, where her spirit waited. She ran from my attack, ran and didn't turn back. I reached for her, for the final response, stretching all my strength to finally strike her down.

Dumoss's creature snatched its claws forward. The head of my mantis fell to the floor. I forced magic into the spirit, but it was already gone. I knew the body at home was dead. Everything was gone. The pendant was empty. There was nothing left.

Weak and sweating, I couldn't stand. Dumoss was already gone-the spirit of his mantis returned. The arena cleared, bodies shuffling, shadows moving. Annise was the last of them to leave the building. I never saw her face, but I heard the sound of a door closing, leaving me inside, alone. Empty and alone. Everything I had done, I had done for her. The Gold Border Loran's Smile, Jeff Grubb

Loran died ten years after the devastation-after Urza and Mishra destroyed most of the world with their war, after the tumultuous explosion that eliminated Argoth and altered the rest of the world forever.

Loran died in part because of that devastation. She did not die in battle, for she was not a warrior. Nor did she die in a duel of magical forces, for though her lover Feldon had mastered the study of magic, she found she could not. She did not die of intrigue, or of passion, or of some fatal flaw.

She died in bed, weakened by wounds suffered over a decade previous-wounds inflicted by Ashnod the Uncaring, Mishra's assistant. She was weakened by the lengthening winters and the cold mountain air, weakened by her own great age, weakened, and eventually defeated, by the world that the brothers, Urza and Mishra, had created.

At first she just winded easily when in the garden or cooking, and Feldon would put aside his own work to help. Then she had trouble working in the garden at all, and Feldon did the best he could, under her direction, to substitute for her.

Later she could not work around the house, and Feldon brought in servants from the nearby town to aid. When she could not get out of bed, Feldon sat beside her and read to her, told her stories of his own youth and listened to hers. After a time he had to feed her as well.

At length she died in bed in her sleep, Feldon sitting beside her, asleep as well from his long guardianship. When he awoke her flesh was cold and pale, and the breath had long-since left her body.

He commanded the servants to dig a grave behind the house, among the now weed-choked garden that Loran had begun with Feldon's grudging, grumbling aid shortly after they first arrived. She had kept it going through several seasons by sheer force of will, but when she took ill that last, final time, she had to surrender the garden to the weeds and the cold rains.

It was raining when they laid her to rest, wrapped in her bed sheets and sealed within a coffin of thick oak planks. Feldon and the servants uttered a few prayers, then the old mage watched as the servants methodically piled the dirt atop the lid. Feldon's tears were lost in the rain.

For days afterward Feldon stayed by the fire, and the servants brought him his meals, much as they had brought Loran hers. Feldon's library and workshop stood empty for the nonce, the books closed, the forges cold, the various reagents and solutions settling quietly in their glass jars. He stared into the fire and sighed.

Feldon remembered: the touch of Loran's hand, the Argivian lilt to her voice, and her thick, dark hair. Most of all, he thought of the smile that she gave. It was a slightly sad, slightly knowing smile. It was a soft smile, and it wanned Feldon whenever he saw it.

Now, Feldon was a practitioner of the Third Path, the way that was neither Urza nor Mishra, charting a new course between the two warring brothers and their technological miracles. He could pull from his mind great magics, fueled by the memories of his mountain home, and work wonders with them. He could cause fire to appear or the land itself to shift or summon the strokes of a lightning storm and bend them to his will.

Yet he could not heal Loran's body or dying spirit. He could not keep the life within her. His magics had failed him and had failed his love.

The old man sighed and raised a hand toward the fire. He unlocked a part of his brain that held the memories of the mountains around them. He pulled the energies from those lands, as he learned to do in Terisia City with Drafna, Hurkyl, the archimandrite, and the other mages of the Ivory Towers. He concentrated, and the flames writhed as they rose from the logs, twisting upon themselves until they finally formed a soft smile.

Loran's smile. It was the most that he could do.

For five days and five nights Feldon sat by the fire, and for a brief time the servants wondered if they would soon have to tend the master as they had tended the mistress. Indeed, Feldon was never fully healthy himself, overweight and walking only with the aid of a silver cane he had rescued from the heart of a glacier. His dark beard was now streaked with silver, and the corners of his eyes drooped from grief and age. The servants wondered if he would ever rise from the fireside again.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «The Colors of Magic Anthology»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «The Colors of Magic Anthology» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «The Colors of Magic Anthology»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «The Colors of Magic Anthology» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x