Читать книгу The King is dead, long live the King! - Eugene Wish - Страница 3

The thunder roared outside and clouds turned black like ripe plums. A storm was coming. «The dark elves have not just entered the city, they have already sneaked into this castle. We missed the conquerors, my friends,» at the chair of the White Magic Collegium spoke Glorian the Light, the head of the department, whose goal is to monitor, detect and destroy the adherents of black magic in the country.

Glorian wore a gray long wavy beard with two pigtails, a light blue beret with wave-like patterns covered his bald head, and a gray tunic dragged along the floor. He was already very old for human age and mature enough for magicians – he was three hundred sixty years old.

– But how did they get in here? Where was the royal guard? – asked Philus the Longnose.

– This rat, the coward majordomo let them in to bury a dead man, who, by the way, is no longer dead! – declared Horus the Gloomy with irritation.

– You want to say that they resurrected him?! – asked Carlos the Thick with excitement.

– I can confirm, I’ve already heard it from my spiders. – said Alfred the Spiderkeeper.

The skinny old man run his fingers over spiders like it were a prayer beads. he picked them from his long gray beard and his long hair, talked with them, since he knew a spider language.

– Well, here we go, the dark elves and zombies rule the country! – sarcastically said Galf the Longhand.

– Sooner or later these creatures will break into this place! – cried Neil the Panic.

– Yes, and then we will give them a hard time! – menacingly declared Horus the Gloomy.

– Don’t forget that there are still white wizards outside our collegium and who knows which side will they choose, – noted Glorian.

– Indeed, there will be many renegades, traitors and snitches, – said Horus.

– And bug-outs! – added Philus the Moustachette.

– I suggest you to make a barricade for a while, – squeaked Neil.

– And I suggest – the voice of Horus was like thunder – to go out and drub those long-eared bastards!

Don’t pretend that you had no idea about the king’s dark affairs, – Inga the Herbal-wife touched upon the bitter truth ironically.

– There were no proofs. Just rumors and speculations, – Galf said in their defense.

– Everyone knew! – Horus shouted menacingly, so loud so that the whole castle shuddered, – your scouts are just useless, Galf. Look at Alfred, who with the help of his spiders found out how the king had fun with Felicia the Witch.

– Yes, it’s true. Though they didn’t do magic there, as you said, Horus, – the master of spiders agreed calmly.

– We knew, – Glorian whispered dryly, – but kept everything under control while he was alive. Just failed after his death, – wistfully summarized the head of the collegium.

***

In the evening, the king was strolling nonchalantly through his winter garden, enjoying the scent of roses, lilies and gladioli. He loved roses the most, of course. Lush, red and odoriferous, they fascinated the monarch so much, he even wanted to replace the black two-headed eagles on the yellow imperial flag with a red rose on a black background.

The king sat on a bench under palm trees and began making notes in his diary about the garden and beautiful roses. However, he was distracted by his old acquaintance – the Plague Doctor.

– Time to cast away the stones and a time to gather them together, – said the Sorrowbearer seriously.

– What do you mean by that?! – exclaimed the frightened king.

– Ha-ha, such a short memory you have, my dear, – the doctor sneered. – According to the agreement, your soul is now ours. And don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on the body.

On this phrase, Conrad rushed through the garden. He frantically tried to find a way out, looking around. There was no one.

The terrified king found the way out at last and dashed towards it, when the Doctor suddenly emerged from nowhere. Something sharp pierced the sovereign’s body for a few seconds. It was a metal syringe that sucked out souls.

The king crashed to the floor, and the Sorrowbearer put the king’s pale blue soul into a special little vessel and clogged it tightly. Then the Doctor took the bright red soul from another vessel and poured it into the king. After a couple of minutes, the king rose. He bared his teeth like a predator, and his pupils turned blood-red.

– Goodbye, Your Majesty! – the doctor said.

– All the best! – Conrad smiled viciously.

***

Suddenly there was the sound of some voices and rumble. The magicians in the hall shuddered. – What was it? – said the wizards in chorus. At the same moment, one of the sequators burst into the hall, he was convulsing, shrouded in dark smoke.

«Oh, demonic forces begone!» – cried out the discouraged Glorian, pointing his staff at the sufferer. A ray of light dispelled the darkness over the man, but at the same moment the magicians of the collegium, captivated by the darkness, broke into the hall.

– Venal rats! – shouted Horus furiously. – «I will destroy you all!» – Brothers, charge! – Glorian called the sorcerers for attack. A magical battle ensued. Soon the battle went beyond the college hall – the dark forces were pushed out of there. An hour later, the battle covered almost the entire castle. The forces of darkness were much greater, but in this case the quality of magic prevailed, and not its quantity.

The defectors were destroyed, the dark elves were thrown out of the castle, unfortunately, to the spikes in the moat. The wizards rested, but not for long. The king Conrad came out of his chambers. – What’s that noise!? – the emperor shouted angrily. The magicians backed away from the Conrad’s wrath. «We are fulfilling our duty of protection from the dark forces,» – said Glorian earnestly.

– And nobody taught you hospitality?! So I will. Conrad waved his hands, and a fiery tornado quickly rushed to the sorcerers. This time they had to dodge and run. The magic of all seven wizards barely stopped the tornado of the witch king. He literally threw them out of the castle. The king triumphed. With the help of levitation, the magicians gently descended into the city, where hundreds of enemies were waiting for them: warlocks, the dark elves and the royal guard. The battle continued on a larger scale – the scale of the city.

The capital burned with hellfire, blood was all over the ground, houses were covered with burning. The explosion of the powder magazine stifled the groans of people, the clang of swords and the flashes of magic spells. The ground crackled as if a real earthquake had begun. The flame reached the sky and threw fire on the city.

The night infolded the day. The smoke reigned over Egoul Fort (the «city of the eagle’). Later, the people called it Yoren Fort («the crimson city’). The fire spread to temples and barns, to wooden taverns and huts of the poor. The court and the magistrate were burning. The enemy pushed the white magicians out of the city, about a hundred people, not to mention our heroes.

On the streets of the city there were dozens of killed mages of light, including Philus the Longnose. Neil the Panic went missing. The disloyal warriors of Kannassis, members of the Sequarium and ordinary citizens fled, saving their own skin. Darkness and horror reigned in the devastated city.