Читать книгу Sky Trillium - Julian May - Страница 13

The viaduct on Mount Brom was situated in the Cavern of Black Ice.

Long ages ago it had given the Vanished Ones access to their mysterious storage place deep in the Ohogan Mountains. And now, as Haramis had anticipated, the viaduct provided the sorcerer Orogastus with a means of entry to her Tower. Through her magical Three-Winged Circle she watched him emerge out of nowhere, through a dark disc without thickness that vanished with a loud bell-chime as soon as he was beyond it. He wore his silver-and-black Star Master regalia, including the gauntlets and the awesome starburst headpiece that hid the upper part of his face.

He stood quietly in the very middle of the cavern’s obsidian-tiled floor, looking at the vault of quartz-veined granite soaring overhead and at the hundreds of alcoves, compartments, and roomlets on every side. The peculiar illumination of the place, shining from unseen sources, caused the icy extrusions in the rock crevices to gleam like polished onyx.

The sorcerer seemed bemused as he walked slowly toward the exit, perhaps remembering the time that the Cavern of Black Ice and its wondrous contents had belonged to him. The glassy dark doors to the chambers and niches were all open. A few sophisticated trinkets and trifles remained, but were useless to his purposes. The compartments that had contained ancient weapons, or other devices intended to intimidate or harm, were empty.

‘So you destroyed them, did you?’ He addressed thin air, knowing she viewed him through her talisman. ‘And yet you kept the most deadly instrument of all! Did it never occur to you that the other two parts of the Sceptre of Power would be denied their greatest, most awful usage if there were no Three-Winged Circle?’

Haramis said nothing. She had thought of it, had even contemplated throwing the Circle into one of the active volcanos in the Flame-Girt Isles when it became obvious that the other two talismans had passed into the hands of a person unknown. But that small silvery wand had been purchased at such a great cost to herself; and the original purpose of the Threefold Sceptre, thwarted twelve thousand years ago, had never ceased to intrigue her. She could not bring herself to cast the talisman away.

Orogastus reached a large wooden door encrusted with hoarfrost and addressed her once more. The set of his mouth had become ironic. ‘Do I have your permission to enter the Tower, White Lady? It is mine, after all, even though you have made free with it for these sixteen years.’