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.Perhaps it wastrue both of skill and of magic-one born of the world of men, the other of the world of faerie.Perhapsboth must surface periodically in the stream of time, then disappear again, then surface once more, and soon forever.But a return now of the knowledge of energy and power, when the last of the Druids was gone.?Still, Cogline was an old man and his knowledge was limited.When he died, perhaps the knowledgewould die with him and be lost again-for a time, at least.And so, too, perhaps it would be with her magic.They walked east for the remainder of the night, picking their way through the thinning forestland.Ahead, the wall of the Ravenshorn began to curve back toward them, turning north into the wilderness ofthe deep Anar.It rose up from out of the night, a towering, dark band of shadow.Olden Moor droppedaway behind them, and only the thin green line of the foothills separated them from the mountain heights.A deeper silence seemed to settle over the land.It was in the crook of the mountains where they turnednorth, Brin knew, that Graymark and the Maelmord lay concealed.And there I must find a way to be free of the others, she thought.There, I must go on alone.The first trailers of sunrise began to slip into view beyond the mountain wall.Slowly the skies lightened,turning from deep blue to gray, from gray to silver, and from silver to rose and gold.Shadows fled awayGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlinto the receding night, and the broad sweep of the land began to etch itself out of the dark.The treesgrew visible first, leaves, crooked limbs, and roughened trunks drawn and colored by the light; thenrocks, scrub, and barren earth, from foothills to bottomland, took form.For a time, the shadow of themountains lingered, a wall against the light, lost in darkness not yet faded.But finally that, too, gave wayto the sunrise, and the light spilled down over the rim of the peaks to reveal the awesome face of theRavenshorn.It was a stark and ugly face-a face that had been ravaged by time and the elements and by the poison ofthe dark magic sown within it.Where the mountains curved north into the wilderness, the rock had beenbleached and worn-as if the life in it had been peeled away like skin to leave only bone.It rose up againstthe skyline, thousands of feet above them, a wall of cliffs and ragged defiles burdened with the weight ofages gone and horrors endured.On the hard, gray emptiness, nothing moved.Brin lifted her face momentarily as the wind brushed past.Her nose wrinkled in distaste.An unpleasantsmell rose up from somewhere ahead. Graymark s sewers. Cogline spit, ferret eyes darting. We re close now.Kimber slipped ahead of them to where Whisper sniffed tentatively at the odorous morning air.Bendingclose to the great cat, she spoke softly in his ear-just a word-and the beast nuzzled her face gently.She turned back to them. Quickly now, before it gets any lighter-Whisper will show us the way.They hurried forward through the new light and receding shadow, following the moor cat as he guidedthem along the twist of the foothills to where the Ravenshorn bent north.Trees and scrub fell awaycompletely, grasses turned sparse and wintry, and the earth gave way to crushed stone and shelf rock.The smell grew steadily worse, a rank and fetid odor that smothered even the freshness of the new day sbirthing.Brin found herself choking for breath.How much worse would it be once they had found theirway into the sewers?Then the hills dropped away sharply before them into a deep valley that was lost in the shadow of themountain wall.There, sullen and still, lay a dark lake of stagnant water, fed by a stream that seeped downthrough the rocks from a broad, blackened hole.Whisper padded to a halt, Kimber at his side. There. She pointed. The sewers.Brin s eyes strayed upward along the ragged line of the peaks, upward thousands of feet to where themountain wall cut its jagged edge against the golden dawn sky.There, still hidden from view, layGraymark, the Maelmord, and the Ildatch.She swallowed against the smell of the sewers.There, too, lay the fate that was to be hers.Her smilewas hard.She must go to meet it.At the entrance to the sewers, Cogline unveiled a bit more of his magic.From a sealed packet buried inone of the pouches he wore strapped to his waist, he produced an ointment that, when rubbed into thenostrils, deadened the stench of the sewer s poisonous discharge.A small magic, he claimed.Though thesmell could not be obliterated entirely, it nevertheless could be made tolerable.Fashioning short-handledbrands from pieces of deadwood, he dipped the ends into the contents of a second pouch and theyemerged covered with a silver substance that glowed like oil lamps when introduced into the cavern sdarkness-even in the absence of any fire.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Just a little more of my magic, outlanders. He chuckled as they scared wonderingly at the flamelesstorches. Chemicals, remember? Something the walkers don t know anything about.And I ve a fewmore surprises.You ll see.Rone frowned doubtfully and shook his head.Brin said nothing, but decided quickly that she would bejust as happy if the opportunity to test those surprises never arose.Torches in hand, the little company moved out of the dawn light into the tunnel darkness of the sewers.The passageways were wide and deep, the liquid poison discharged from the halls of Graymark and theMaelmord flowing down a worn, rutted channel that cut through the tunnel floor.To either side of wherethe sewage flowed, there were stone walkways that offered footing broad enough for the company topass upon.Whisper led the way, luminous eyes blinking in sleepy reflection against the light of thetorches, splayed feet padding soundlessly on the stone.Cogline followed with Kimber, and Brin andRone brought up the rear.They walked for a long time.Brin lost track of how long a time it was, her concentration dividedbetween picking her way through the half-light and thinking of her promise to find a way to go down intothe Maelmord without the others.The sewer wound upward through the mountain rock, twisting andturning like a coiled snake.The stench permeating the passage was almost unbearable, even with the aidof the repellant that Cogline had provided to ease their breathing difficulties.From time to time, suddendrafts of cold air blew down from above them, clearing the smell of the sewage-wind from the peaks intowhich they climbed.But the drafts of fresh air were few and brief, and the smells of the sewer werealways quick to return.The morning slipped away, the hours lost in the endless spiral of their ascent.Once they came upon amassive iron grate that had been dropped across the passageway to prevent anything larger than a ratfrom entering.Rone reached for his sword, but a sharp word from Cogline brought him up short.Agleeful cackle breaking from his lips, the old man motioned them back, then produced yet anotherpouch-this one containing an odd, blackish powder laced with something that looked to be soot [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]