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transfer to the web and dissipate into the pit as heat. The plot made the
sorcerer smile.
"Try to escape," he mocked, wishing his adversary were present. "Just try.
Your efforts will free none but the frost-wargs." And his smile dissolved into
laughter until the grotto bounced with echoes.
Confident of the trap he had wrought, the sorcerer groped among the rocks for
his torch. Once it was lit, he started up the shaft.
The weight of sodden velvet bowed Anskiere's shoulders like mail as he
traversed the cliffs where Ivain had secured the frostwargs. He had discarded
the cloak long since. Knotted in a sling of rags torn from the lining, his
staff glowed at his back. The stormfalcon circled above, held by the geas of
hom-ing even as the storm was bound still to her flight path. Anskiere toiled
over rocks glazed by rain, beleaguered by gales his own hand had once
controlled; the sensitive instincts which enabled him to bend weather into
harmony with his will were absent. Unaccustomed to the hostility of the
elements, Anskiere felt like an artist gone blind in the midst of a
masterpiece. The predicament might have hurt less had his adversaries not
cap-tured the children.
A breaker smoked over the reef, needling Anskiere with spray. His skin had
long since gone numb.
Shivering, he crossed a narrow ledge, unable to gauge when the storm would
peak, or estimate the high tide mark. The waves were still building. Foam
smothered another almost under his boot, and spindrift stung his eyes. The
ledge was certainly unsafe.
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Ivain had designed the frostwargs' prison above reefs which slashed the tides
into boiling currents of whitewater; waves threatened to dash Anskiere like
flotsam from the path. Forced to give ground time after time, still, when the
water receded, the Stormwarden always pressed on. He had no choice but to
cross at once, before the storm rendered the ledge impassable.
But progress was painfully slow. Morning was nearly spent when Anskiere began
the final approach to the cave. Tormented by the conviction that his enemy had
used the delay to his disadvantage, the
Stormwarden began the ascent of the final precipice. There, with the cave
entrance an arm's reach over-head, he heard the sea rise at his back.
Anskiere leaped, grabbed a handhold. The foaming maw of the breaker thundered
into his shoulders, slammed him against rock. Water pummeled the breath from
his lungs, dragged cruelly at his limbs.
Grimly he clung. His palms tore on the stones. His body slipped slowly
seaward. The surf would kill him, bash him over and over against the coral
until his flesh was a mangled rag. Tathagres would laugh, and
Taen...
Anskiere grimaced, consumed by the need to survive. He gathered himself,
driven by the roar of another larger wave. With a heave that taxed every sinew
in his frame, Anskiere clawed his way through the tumble of receding water. He
rolled, gasping and disheveled, into the shaft.
Pebbles scored his skin. The staff clanged against close stone walls and
wedged in a fissure. Caught by the sling, Anskiere tumbled onto a mild
incline. He lay prone, blinking salt from his eyes, content at first to be
still. But the chill soon made him shiver. Bruised, abraded, and wrenched in
every joint, the
Stormwarden rose to his feet. Outside the gale battered the cliff face,
blocking his retreat; and below, if his assessment was correct, an enemy
awaited with plans to ruin him.
Anskiere shook the water from his hair, spat out the taste of salt. He reached
for his staff. Sodden knots loosened reluc-tantly under his fingers as he
freed the wood from the sling. The sea had inflamed the marks on his wrists,
but their sting was overlaid by the sharper memory of Taen's fists clamped in
his shirt. Distressed, he started down the shaft, scattering droplets from his
robe. Now he was glad the dead sorcerer's aggression had kindled the wards in
his staff, for their bright radiance lit his way like a beacon.
The path was smooth at first. Deeper, Anskiere recalled, tunnels twisted with
angles and buttresses of slagged stone. Below, the prison fashioned for the
frostwargs was as black and tangled as the character of its creator.
Ivain had originally melted the rock with wizardry of fire, but the acrid
smell Anskiere remembered from the shaft's form-ing had faded long since,
replaced by musty odors of roots, earth, and moist granite.
Except for the echo of his own steps the cave was silent. Bats sought other
roosts than the arched ceilings overhead, and wildlife avoided the place,
instinctively shunning the evil which hibernated below.
The Stormwarden rounded a bend, and the terrain under his boots roughened.
Beneath stretched a series of terraces hedged with crystals like swords. Here
amid the dazzle of refracted light a misstep could cripple the unwary
trespasser. Anskiere trod carefully, unsur-prised to discover human bones
tumbled among the cave's bewitching beauty. The Ivain he knew had always been
care-less, even disdainful of life. Uneasy, the Stormwarden pro-ceeded with
every sense alert for danger. The din of the storm receded above, dampened by
baffles of stone; far ahead, a polished vein of agate threw back a reflection
the color of blood.
The Stormwarden noted, and froze. Cloaked in the frosty gleam of his staff, he
looked closer, and saw the crimson flicker brighten slowly into orange. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]