Sheri Tepper - Necromancer Nine

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Sheri Tepper - Necromancer Nine» 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.

Necromancer Nine: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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

Some will be kings, some will be sorcerers, and some pawns in the real lives of those who live the magical chess game on True Life. But one child is wreaking havoc; he can be any player he likes and threatens to destroy the game forever.

Necromancer Nine — 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 «Necromancer Nine», 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

“What happened to him?” I had put one hand into my pocket, feeling desperately for — for what? Shattnir could do me no good in this cold place. Those around me were not dead to be raised by Dorn. And neither would come to me in any case.

“Why, he died,” he said, pretending surprise. “After he had made me the things I wanted, told me the things I wanted to know, given me the books he had. He made this shield, like the one you had in Schooltown. This weapon, like no other you have ever seen. Oh, Peter, with this weapon there will be no Gaming against Huld. No. All the Gaming will be as I choose.” He stroked the thing exultantly. “After I dispose of your family.”

He drew out the word to make it an obscenity. Until that moment, I had not thought of them as my family, but they were. Himaggery. Mavin. My own kind. My fingers still groped in my pocket. Habit, not hope.

And closed around a Gamesman, closed to feel a warm, wonderful certainty rise through me, soft and gentle, kind as summer, the voice whispering as familiar, almost, as my own. “Peter. Why are you standing here? Valor is all well and good, but shouldn’t you be elsewhere if you can manage it?”

It was Windlow. I almost laughed aloud before remembering the threat. Yes, I know that is foolish. It was only an instant thing, as quickly suppressed. I let Windlow go and burrowed deep to close around a figure I had not tried until then. Old as Didir, powerful as she, her mate and coeval, Tamor. Grandfather Tamor. Towering Tamor.

There was no hesitation. The block, whatever it might have been, had been healed. Perhaps Windlow had healed it. Tamor came into me like a hawk stooping, and I was looking down on Huld as he peered at the place I had been. There was no sensation of flying as I had often thought there would be. No, I was simply lying high upon the air, above Huld, seeing Mavin and Himaggery moving stealthily toward him around barriers of chill bodies.

“Huld!” I cried.

He pointed the device up, released a bolt of force which blistered past me and melted stone and hanging ice from the arched ceiling far above. Liquid rock fell past me, hardening as it came, and Huld ran from the lethal rain even as I swooped away to another part of the cavern. More stone and ice rained down. This was no result of Huld’s weapon. This was more of the same quaking we had felt before. Mavin waved to attract my attention, pointed to the far end of the great cavern. I nodded to show her that I understood. I should have watched Huld, not Mavin, for another bolt from the weapon came toward me, touched me agonizingly, and splashed against the ice. “All right,” said Tamor from within. “Keep your eyes open, boy. Shall we rescue your friend?” Himaggery did look lonely and lost, sprawled out below me between two piles of bodies. We swooped down, not at all birdlike, to grab him and lift him high in a long shallow glide which took us toward the cavern end. I heard Huld screaming in fury. He had known of some of my Talents. He had not known of them all. Well, how could he have done? I had not known of them myself.

“You will not get away,” he was screaming at me. “I’ve closed that way out. I knew you’d come here, come where the bodies of your allies lay. I knew you’d try to get them. It’s the kind of Gamish stupidity they taught you, boy.”

“Even if you escape, it won’t stop me. I’ll come after you again, and yet again. I have allies, too. And plans. And the world will not hold us both as Masters, so you will serve my Game.”

“Tchuck.” Tamor made a tsking sound in my head. “That kind of hysterical threat is unbecoming. undignified. I do not like being called Grandfather to that.” We were away on another long. swooping glide that broke twice to escape bolts from Huld’s weapon. A great slab of stone turned red behind us and slid toward the floor, half flowing. Without thinking, I reached for Shattnir and felt her run into me like wine, reaching out toward the melted stone to draw its heat and power into every fiber. We stayed there, hidden behind the bodies, until I heard Huld coming, then rose once more, lying flat, skimming like an arrow behind the stacked bodies toward the chill wind. Himaggery gasped. I was holding him under one Shifted arm, huge and hairy as a pombi’s leg. Well, he should have been used to Shifter ways. In order to get me upon my mother he should have known her rather well.

The shaking of the cavern was constant. I heard Huld shout something, away behind me, then another shout which sounded like fear. He had either been under a falling chunk of rock or had been narrowly missed. I didn’t care which. The opening of the cavern was before me. Mavin was already there. The entrance was covered by a narrow grill which sizzled with the same force Huld’s weapon had used. Mavin spread her hands wide in consternation. She could not Shift to go through the narrow openings without frying herself. Within me, Shattnir laughed. The laughter of Shattnir had nothing of humor in it. It was not an experience, then or thereafter, which I greatly enjoyed. All the heat of the great melted slab went into the bolt which broke the grill, melted it in its turn, and spread its broken shards over half the mountain side. Mavin fled through the opening, out and down, knowing I would follow. Around us the earth clamored, no longer quivering but heaving to and fro in long, hideous waves. I flew through the opening into nubilous air, high into gray cloud to see the white wings of a huge bird slide through the gloom beneath me. Then we saw it, Himaggery and I. Away to the southeast, where the shiptower might have been, a ball of flame, swelling, swelling into a little sun, a cloud rising from it lit from below, bloody and skull-shaped in the murk, fires within it, lightnings playing upon its top. The wind took us then, tumbling us over and over in the high air on the face of a hot wind which Shattnir merely sucked into me and stored away. The earth roared, heaved, and fell in mighty undulations. I saw a mountain tremble, throw back its head and laugh into roaring fragments as we spun through the air again, rolling on the wind. Wild fire licked and crackled and eventually died. After a time we came down, onto a green hill which sat quietly beneath us, steady as a chair. Wind from the north whipped the bloody clouds to tatters and away. The sun broke through, midway down the western sky. It was not a day, yet, since we had hidden in the shiptower to see the Ceremony of Calling Home.

Beside me, Himaggery picked up a straw and closed trembling lips upon it. “Well, lad. What do you think we should do now?”

I picked up a straw of my own. “I don’t know what you want to do, Himaggery,” I said.

“But I’m going to change myself into a Dragon and go looking for my mother.”

Bright Demesne

WE FOUND MAVIN ON HER PINNACLE, just where I had thought she would be, and she was properly admiring of the most splendid Dragon she or anyone in the world had ever seen. It was exactly as Chance had said, a fool idea. The fire and speed and wind in the wings were all very well, but there was still Windlow in my pocket and the bodies of ten thousand great Gamesmen (as well as a few pawns) lying in the cavern under the snows. Oh, we had gone back, Himaggery and I, just to be sure. The cavern was quite intact except for a little fallen ice and melted stone. Huld was not there, dead nor alive, which meant he was still at large in the world, hunting me. I was growing tired of that.

So, once I had done my gomerousing around as a Dragon, I settled with Himaggery and Mavin on the pinnacle, to await the arrival of my cousins. We sat about Mavin’s fire, me watching Himaggery be excruciatingly polite to her while she twitted him at every opportunity. I finally took her aside and told her to let him alone. If she truly did not want to be the man’s pawnish mate, I told her, then she should not keep saying so so vehemently, which would just make him believe the opposite. I don’t know how I figured that out, except that Trandilar probably had something to do with it. At any rate, it bought us some peace and we got along better.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Necromancer Nine»

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


Sheri Tepper - King’s Blood Four
Sheri Tepper
Sheri Tepper - Wizard’s Eleven
Sheri Tepper
Sheri Tepper - Rituel de chasse
Sheri Tepper
Christopher Buehlman - The Necromancer's House
Christopher Buehlman
Sheri Tepper - Grass
Sheri Tepper
libcat.ru: книга без обложки
Michael Scott
Sheri Tepper - Pianeta di caccia
Sheri Tepper
Sarah Nicola Heidner - Nina und die Sphinxwelt
Sarah Nicola Heidner
Отзывы о книге «Necromancer Nine»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Necromancer Nine» 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