Deadhouse Gates полностью

His shouting senses changed pitch. Kulp was no longer alone. The thick, turgid air of the Meanas Warren — where shadows were textured like ground glass and to slip through them was to feel a shivering ecstasy — had begun to bulge, then bow, as if something huge approached, pushing the air before it. And whatever it was, it was coming fast.

A sudden thought flooded the mage's mind. And moreover, it possessed … elegance. Togg's toes, can I do this? Building pressure, then vacuous wake, a certain current, a certain flow. Hood, it ain't water, but close enough.

I hope.

He saw Heboric jump back in alarm, striking his head on a low crossbeam in the cabin. Kulp slipped back into his body and loosed a rasping gasp. 'We're about to go, Heboric. Get everyone ready!'

The old man was rubbing a stump against the back of his head. 'Ready for what, Mage?'

'Anything.'

Kulp slid back out, mentally clambering back over his anchor within Meanas.

The Unwelcome was coming, a force of such power as to make the febrile atmosphere shiver. The mage saw nearby shadows vibrate into dissolution. He felt outrage building in the air, in the loamy earth underfoot. Whatever was passing through this warren had drawn the attention of… of whatever — Shadowthrone, the Hounds — or perhaps warrens truly are alive. In any case, on it came, in arrogant disregard.

Kulp suddenly thought back to Sormo's ritual that had drawn them into the T'lan Imass warren outside Hissar. Oh, Hood, Soletaken or D'ivers … but such power! Who in the Abyss has such power? He could think of but two: Anomander Rake, the Son of Darkness, and Osric. Both Soletaken, both supremely arrogant. If there were others, the tales of their activities would have reached him, he was certain. Warriors talk about heroes. Mages talk about Ascendants. He would have heard.

Rake was on Genabackis, and Osric was reputed to have journeyed to a continent far to the south a century or so back. Well, maybe the cold-eyed bastard's back. Either way, he was about to find out.

The presence arrived. His spiritual belly flat on the soft ground, Kulp craned his head skyward.

The dragon came low to the earth. It defied every image of a draconian being Kulp had ever seen. Not Rake, not Osric. Hugely boned, with skin like dry shark hide, its wing-span dwarfed even that of the Son of Darkness — who has within him the blood of the draconian goddess — and the wings had nothing of the smooth, curving grace; the bones were multi-jointed in a crazed pattern, like that of a crushed bat wing, each knobbed joint prominent beneath taut, cracked skin. The dragon's head was as wide as it was long, like a viper's, the eyes high on its skull. There was no ridged forehead, instead the skull sloped back to a basal serration almost buried in neck and jaw muscles.

A dragon roughly cast, a creature exhaling an aura of primordial antiquity. And, Kulp realized with a breathless start as his senses devoured all that the creature projected, it was undead.

The mage felt it become aware of him as it sailed in a whisper twenty arm-spans overhead. A sudden sharpening of intensity that quickly passed into indifference.

As the dragon's wake arrived with a piercing wind, Kulp rolled onto his back and hissed the few words of High Meanas he possessed. The warren's fabric parted, a tear barely large enough to allow the passage of a horse. But it opened onto a vacuum, and the shrieking wind became a roar.

Still hovering between realms, Kulp watched in awe as Silanda's mud-crusted, battered prow filled the rent. The fabric split wider, then yet wider. Suddenly, the ship's beam seemed appallingly broad. The mage's awe turned to fear, then terror. Oh no, I've really done it now.

Milky, foaming water gushed in around the ship's hull. The portalway was tearing wider on all sides, uncontrolled, as the weight of a sea began to rush through.

A wall of water descended on Kulp and a moment later it struck, destroying his anchor, his spiritual presence. He was back in the pitching, groaning captain's cabin. Heboric was half in and half out of the cabin doorway, scrambling to find purchase as Silanda rode the wave.

The ex-priest shot Kulp a glare when he saw the mage clamber upright. 'Tell me you planned this! Tell me you've got it all under control, Mage!'

'Of course, you idiot! Can't you tell?' He climbed his way round the bolted-down furniture to the passage, stepping over Heboric as he went. 'Hold the fort, old man, we're counting on you!'