Archiwum
- Index
- Barb & J C Hendee Noble Dead 07 In Shade and Shadow (v5.0)
- Zelazny, Roger The Second Chronicles of Amber 04 Knight of Shadows
- Laurell K. Hamilton MD 01 A Kiss Of Shadows
- Star Fire Ingo Swann
- Bevarly Elizabeth Czas na dziecko Jeszcze jedna szansa
- Clark Lucy Podwójne szcz晜›cie
- Walter Jon Williams House of Shards
- Rob McGregor Indiana Jones i dziedzictwo jednorośźca
- Jarrett Miranda Ziemia krwi, ziemia milosci
- Dunlop Barbara Dziedzic francuskiej fortuny
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- gim12gda.pev.pl
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The air blew chill off the heights. Jaric shivered in his thin tunic and
squared his shoulders to climb. Ice and rock had contained the frostwargs
since Tathagres' sorcerers had provoked their escape; presumably fire would
control them. Ivainson set his hands to the rock. Contact with the land proved
a revelation after lengthy weeks at sea; stone and soil seemed alive,
responsive to his Earth-mastery. Unlike his previous climbs, the cliff face
welcomed his presence, yielding footholds and fissures to his inner awareness.
Jaric smiled with self-revelation; on a whim he could mould the rock face into
stairs to ease his ascent. But caution and his own reluctance to wield power
caused him to climb without enchantments. Later, against the frostwargs, he
might need every available resource.
Twilight dyed the sea indigo beneath a violet arch ol sky. Dwarfed by cascades
of ice, Jaric set foot on th«
uppermost tier of the ledge. With closed eyes he extended his senses and
mapped the tunnels carved by Ivain to contain the frostwargs. Sealed off by
the cold, the entrance angled steeply beneath the headland. Passages bored
deep into rock, linked by chains of caverns and buttresses of chiselled stone.
The upper levels were choked with spellbound ice; below, closed in fetid
darkness, lurked the frostwargs. Though the creatures preferred live prey,
they could also draw sustenance from soil and rock. They did not breathe;
water could not drown them, nor would flame consume their shells. Only extreme
heat could cause them temporarily to shift form.
Surrounded by the smells of sea and tide wrack and the sour cries of gulls,
Jaric laced his fingers together. He honed his will to a pinpoint of force,
stepped forward, and sank straight down into rock. The stone flowed around
him, thick and turgid as quicksand. Though his eyes were utterly blind, his
Earthmaster's vision saw vistas: quartz like jagged veins of frost, crystals,
and rust-dark ores, and a thousand textures of mineral. Down Jaric plunged,
past level upon level encompassed by Anskiere's wards. With his heart pounding
from tension, he emerged at last on a ledge just below the ceiling in the
cavern confining the frostwargs.
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A strident whistle slashed his ears. Jaric's skin tightened with gooseflesh.
The calls of frostwargs grew nearer, threaded by a scraping and scrabbling of
daws, Then the creatures scented the presence of prey and burst into a
full-throated ululation.
Sweating, Jaric snapped a flame out of air. It flickered from his fingertips,
weak red in the oxygen-poor atmosphere of the cavern. In baleful, bloody
light, the Firelord sought his enemy. Ivain had floored the cave with a forest
of sword-thin crystals; a thousand edges of reflec-tion stabbed Jaric's eyes.
Creatures scuttled between on segmented legs. Their carapaces were jointed
like insects', ending in arched tails tipped with spikes. Eyes glowed violet
in the dimness, speckling highlights over terrible, curved mandibles and razor
sets of foreclaws that gnashed air with tireless ferocity. Stabbed by dread,
Jaric saw frostwargs hurtle across the cavern and continue, straight up rock
walls toward his feet.
He had no moment to think. The demons moved with terrifying speed. Claws
snicked scant inches from his flesh, even as he set his hands to rock and
transformed earth energy into fire. Light and unbearable heat exploded over
the cavern. Shells clicked on rock, and whistles blended into dissonance.
Pressed against stone, Jaric struck, and struck again. Sparks flared in his
hair and clothes; cinders bit into his skin but he barely noticed pain. Over
and over he discharged power, until the whistles faded and died amid a roaring
avalanche of flame.
At length, weak-kneed and weary, Jaric permitted the fires to dwindle. The
cavern below lay awash in golden light, details mantled under steam which
drifted from the ice at the far side. Jaric searched carefully, but saw no
trace of movement. Scattered amid the topaz sparkle of crystals he found
black, spiny spheres, each one a dormant frostwarg. No sooner had the Firelord
identified the objects, when the nearer ones began to change form. Smoky shell
shifted texture, turned mottled in patterns of mustard and ink.
Appalled to discover how swiftly the horrors could recover, Jaric acted
instantly. His Earthmaster's vision sounded the depths of the shaft, and
encountered a circular pit at the bottom. Ivain had not carved deep enough.
Shaping powers of fire and stone, Keithland's new Fire-lord shattered the roof
of the cavern, then ignited the rubble and smothered the frostwargs'
seed-forms in seething magma. The air shimmered with heat. Fumes roiled up,
stinging his eyes. Jaric raised his hands and struck deeper.
Energies crackled across rock. A chasm opened in the floor, spurting lava like
a sword wound. Jaric gathered himself and struck again. Ivain's crystals
melted and ran, while the base of the cavern softened, slithered, then
collapsed with a roar over the brink, bearing the shells of the frostwargs
deep beneath the earth. The lava would finally solidify, shackling the demons
in stone until such time as the mountain itself crumbled away.
10
Ice Wards
The cavern of the frostwargs smouldered like a counterpart of hell. Awash in
ruddy light, Jaric crouched with his head in his hands, eyes stung to tears by
fumes thrown off from the magma. Coughing poisoned air, and sapped by
exhaustion, he struggled unsteadily to his feet. Although he had raised heat
enough to sear solid stone to vapour, the ice imprisoning Anskiere remained
imperviously shrouded in fog. Without stirring from the ledge, Jaric sensed
that the weather wards that preserved the barrier held firm. The Stormwarden
was prisoner still.
Though confrontation with the frostwargs had left him taxed and shaken, Jaric
descended through a defile. The force of his defences had ploughed the cavern
floor into a tortured maze of rubble; lava puddled and spilled through the
rifts, radiating sultry highlights over pinnacles and arches of slagged stone.
Jaric picked his way cautiously between, his skin flushed ruddy by the fires
of his handiwork. Heat charred the soles from his boots as he walked;
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compelled to pause and engage mastery to prevent burns, he yearned sharply for
his days with the trapper and the snow-bound silence of Seitforest. But
Keithland's need would not wait for daydreams. Jaric moved on, his ears
tortured by the hiss of calderas and the crack and boom of settling rock. The
groan of the ravaged earth inflamed his inner senses like pain. Unable to
escape the proof that he had inherited the destructive stamp of his sire, the
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