World Of The Fallen Dragon

9

The gray mage continuously brewed medicines and combined antidotes for two days, keeping Maren alive along the way. Luckily, he had a few needles with samples of the acidic poison left to use to create an antidote. On the third day, the necromancer died, and he had to transplant his heart, and at the same time his eyes to replace those that had leaked out.

Tobius infused a test sample of the antidote into Maren's body over the next three days, after which side effects appeared in the form of purple sores on his right arm. Taking a sample of the substance from the ulcers, the wizard analyzed its composition, changed the formula of the antidote and began infusions of the improved composition. The damage to the body was terrible. Tobius was able to fix something thanks to experience and healing talents, but only time and a miracle could fix something. The face was especially badly damaged, and it was not to be hoped that it would ever look the same as before. Nevertheless, Marin slowly got out of the other world, proving that necromancers are the most tenacious of all wizards in the world.

A week and a half passed, during which Tobius sat over Marin's body, closely monitoring his condition. There was a thunderstorm one night, like the first night Tobius came to the Graveyard Yard. The wizard went down to the cellar to get himself some food when there was a loud knock on the front door. And not just loudly, but as if they wanted to drop the door. Putting the wooden tray on the counter, Tobius walked to the door. I did not want to let the dampness and cold outside, where the weather was raging, into the hall, but it was also impossible to pretend that there was no one. He unlocked the door.

"We're closed," Tobius said, slapped in the face by the cold wind that blew into the hall.

A short flash of lightning pulled out of the darkness the silhouette of a tall man in a travel cloak with a stand-up collar. The wizard's hand twitched towards the wand, but he stopped in time, because the wand remained at the top of the tower, and it was not Serpent's Tongue standing on the threshold of the Graveyard Yard.

Why can't I get in? the visitor asked rudely.

Tobius took a deep breath of wet and cold air, his face hardened.

"That's probably what's bothering you." He pointed to the doorframe, which showed new security markings carved with his own knife.

- Where is the owner?

- Is ill.

- Let me in, I have an invitation. Marin is my friend.

“Anyone can pretend to be a friend to a person who cannot answer for himself. Went away.

Between the cocked hat, from which streams of rainwater flowed, and the edge of the raised collar, red lights flashed on the stranger's face.

“Do you even know who you want to bark at, smerd?” Yes, I’ll tear down the walls now, and no healer’s scratches on the joint of your throat will save!

Tobius raised his hand without a word and struck with a stream of golden light, blowing his interlocutor from the threshold. From the darkness came a loud cry of pain, which turned into a plaintive whine.

There was a thunderclap.

“And not to appear here again,” the gray magician threw into the cold night. “I have so many more in store! Enough for a whole graveyard! Walking carrion…

With these words, he slammed the door, locked all the locks, checked the system of protective charms that he had entangled in the "Cemetery Yard".

Marin woke up in the second week. Tobius was sitting at his desk sorting through papers stolen from Serpent's Tongue Laboratory when the necromancer wheezed louder than usual.

- With awakening. Do not try to speak, your throat is dry and your tongue is swollen. Now I'll give you water.

Having drunk the patient, the gray wizard sat down in a chair next to him and began to check the condition of the tissues. Special spells "sewn" to Maren's organs projected out intangible streams of light runes and glyphs that could be used to read about the state of the body.

- Where are we?

- Don't you smell?

- My laboratory.

- Yes exactly.

- I can not see anything.

- Certainly. Your eyes literally evaporated, you had to transplant new ones.

- Were you able to carry out such a delicate operation? I am impressed.

- Thank you. The eyes will heal in a few months, but you'd better take care of your eyesight.

- Commitment...

“You also had to transplant a new heart.

The necromancer's arms, thinned during his illness, twitched, but fell like powerless lashes. Then he slowly ran his fingers over his chest and felt the long line of stitches under the bandages.

“Delicate work… yes, you are an excellent healer, enchantment Tobius.

– Fortunately, I was able to develop this facet of Art in myself. Although, if you were less hardy, I would not have pulled you out. In addition, it is difficult to splice the tissues of a necromancer - some of the healing spells have the opposite effect for you.

“I know it is the rejection of my Gift to life. Alas. How much time has passed?

- Two weeks. Two and a half, I don't know exactly.

"And you didn't let me die all this time?"

- I did what I could.

- However. I can't find the words to thank you. Didn't have to use them.

- Don't bother.

“And the maleficarum?”

- I killed him.

- A…

- I interrupted all the life cycles of his body, cutting off the flow of impulses from the brain and spinal cord along the nerve fibers. All processes, including vegetative ones, were stopped, the soul was closed inside the body. I call it the Meat Coffin. Author's spell.

“And the soul remains trapped in the body for—”

- Five minutes. After this period, permanent death occurs.

“You are a cruel man, char Tobius…”

— Yes, and very insidious. Now I'm thinking, why shouldn't I do the same with you?

“The question is, rather, why would you want to kill me?”

“You deceived me by saying you didn't practice the Arts. However, the path of Rot is familiar to you.

Marin lay flat, bandaged with bandages soaked in healing ointment. Most of his head was also covered with bandages. Despite Tobius regularly feeding him mixtures, the necromancer had lost two-sixths of his weight and was barely able to move.

“So, char Tobius, you have found them.

- Under the floor in the kitchen, in leaded sarcophagi, they lay and waited for commands. I did not immediately guess, but when I put everything together in my head, all that remained was to find them. The workers who don't sweat in the hot kitchen disappear before the arrival of the monks, the workers for whom there are no rooms or clothes in the house. Workers you didn't release before going hunting. Very accommodating employees. Ashke and Freshke, if I remember correctly? Who were they in life?

- Dashing people. This is true. I didn't lure victims to my inn, kill them, or perform forbidden rituals, not at all. I am a quiet person living a quiet life. Once two people collapsed, I fed them, gave them drink, and then, instead of gratitude and payment, they put a knife to my throat. Healthy village foreheads, but stupid to the point. I sedated them. Then he choked. Then he treated the bodies with balms and raised them in the form of silent people.

“My turn to express my admiration for you. Silent people are such a rarity these days, not every master will spend time on them.

— In Westerreich, yes. But in the Right Wing countries [The area of ​​the continent east of the Dragon Ridge. Accordingly, to the west - the Left Wing.], as I heard, there are many of them ...

“However, now I am obliged to inform the Academy and the Investigation about the case of the use of forbidden techniques.

“It was self-defense.

- Self-defense is if you put them to sleep and handed them over to the authorities, and not killed and turned them into walking corpses. You did bad.

“They were scoundrels and scoundrels. I do not presume to say, but I think that they killed innocent people more than once or twice. I just made sure it didn't happen again. Never. Besides, you are not sinless. They killed the villain, but your conscience does not torment you? He was, after all, a man, born and nurtured by a human woman, by no means in order to be brutally murdered. Are you sure you did the right thing? Are you sure that you had the right to take life, no matter how terrible your enemy, while you cannot restore his life?

Tobius got up, walked over to the table, gathered up his things, and stuffed the sleepy Lauchalganda into his bag. Then he threw his cloak over his shoulders, fastened the fibula, on which a lively red eye blinked, and headed for the hatch. Opening it, the magician turned to the owner.

“I have a guilty conscience, char Maren. And I consciously accepted this burden when I decided on what I did. I have the sin of murder, and it torments me, but this is the price I chose to pay for a good deed. You are a necromancer.

Did I hide this from you? Marin smiled dully.

- No. But for some reason, I don’t know why, it seemed to me ... it seemed. However, I was wrong. You are a necromancer and look at life with dead eyes. As a magician, I understand this, I also do not like it when useful material is wasted. However, for me, the material is stones, powders, dried and fresh plants, and for you, people. I dismantled one silent man - I should have got your heart and eyes. But the second one, I think, can take care of you. All the best.

"Just one question, enchant Thobius!" Tell me, after you use your Meat Coffin, does your victim retain the ability to think? You said that you are cutting off the brain from the rest of the body, stopping all vital functions, even vegetative ones, but in order to start all this again within five minutes, the brain must remain alive. You have achieved this somehow, perhaps due to some special healing techniques - so tell me, is it true that the soul and mind of your victim is locked inside his own corpse, in complete darkness, without sight, without hearing, without touch, without the ability to take a breath? At the same time, your victim continues to exist as a person and experiences the wildest horror that a living being is capable of ...

The necromancer did not wait for an answer and laughed hoarsely.

— Meat Coffin! I understand! How accurate! Yes, compared to you, I'm just a saint! the necromancer laughed.

Tobius slowly descended the stairs. He called with him the golems that were waiting for him in the empty dining room, went out into the open sky, tightly closed the door and, jumping off the threshold, strode northeast, to the capital, to the title of master of magic.

The Academy Medallion can serve as a free pass to many places. For example, in the cities of the Riven kingdom. The adepts of the Riven Academy were not required by law to pay an entry fee or tolls, so Tobius got through the city walls unhindered and even with an unfinished purse.

Ordersee, the capital of Riven, the largest and richest city in the kingdom, was inhabited by more than a hundred thousand souls, human and not so. The peace of the majestic city was kept by high fortress walls, at the base of which were spread rich and vast suburbs. Each of the four paths leading to different gates of the Ordersee was protected by a fortress, and in the city itself the soldiers of the capital's royal garrison were constantly quartered in the palace barracks and the regiment of the Church Guard in the monastery of St. Tilma. True, since the rightful king retired into exile, the capital's garrison had lost the title of royal, and now a black wolverine of the Wolferin family was grinning from the red banners flying over the barracks.

- Where should we go now? Tobius asked his silent companions.

His eyes involuntarily landed on the main tower of the Academy, a huge colossus propping up the sky, which was clearly visible from all over the Ordersee, for it towered over any roofs. Above this tower could only be those that stood in the Heart of the Dragon, the sacred city of Astergaz, as well as those that adorned the capital of the former Grogan Empire, the great and brilliant city of Aliostr.

Although there were two more cities that could argue with the grandeur of their spiers with other monuments of ancient architecture - Absalodrium Forked.

Deciding that the affairs of the Academy could wait, the gray magician walked through the streets of the capital, examining and recognizing the places that he remembered as a child. As a child, he could tirelessly look at the city from the windows of the Academy in rare breaks between classes and visits to the library. As a boy, the wizard rushed through these streets, fulfilling the instructions of mentors. Tobius loved the capital and those who lived in it.

And not only people lived in the Ordersee. Basically, of course, they were, but non-humans also got along with people. Of the latter, goblins stood out in numbers, the most survivable beings anywhere in Valemar. Still sometimes on the street you could meet a dwarf or two. They rarely traveled to the extreme west of the Westerreich, usually settling somewhere closer to their native Khazungor [The realm of the Dwarves, located in and under the Dragonspine, unofficially the largest state in the world and the oldest world empire. Khazungor is ruled by a king who is the leader of all his people, but individual ethnic clans have considerable political autonomy.], no further than the Arkhaddir kingdom. The dwarves maintained weapons and jewelry workshops, working hard to promote their high-quality goods to the Riven market. Things were going pretty well for them. but they could go even better if the dwarves were limited to weapons. Due to competition in the jewelry market, the bearded men constantly clashed with the large goblin diaspora, because the green-skinned rogues sincerely considered all the gold in the world to be their property, and work with jewelry was a species monopoly. About once a year or a year and a half, Ordersee was on the receiving end when bands of goblins from the Shining Crossroads and small groups of dwarves from the Golden Dead End clashed right on the streets away from the center. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. Due to competition in the jewelry market, the bearded men constantly clashed with the large goblin diaspora, because the green-skinned rogues sincerely considered all the gold in the world to be their property, and work with jewelry was a species monopoly. About once a year or a year and a half, Ordersee was on the receiving end when bands of goblins from the Shining Crossroads and small groups of dwarves from the Golden Dead End clashed right on the streets away from the center. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. Due to competition in the jewelry market, the bearded men constantly clashed with the large goblin diaspora, because the green-skinned rogues sincerely considered all the gold in the world to be their property, and work with jewelry was a species monopoly. About once a year or a year and a half, Ordersee was on the receiving end when bands of goblins from the Shining Crossroads and small groups of dwarves from the Golden Dead End clashed right on the streets away from the center. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. for the green-skinned rogues sincerely considered all the gold of the world to be their property, and the work with jewels a species monopoly. About once a year or a year and a half, Ordersee was on the receiving end when bands of goblins from the Shining Crossroads and small groups of dwarves from the Golden Dead End clashed right on the streets away from the center. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. for the green-skinned rogues sincerely considered all the gold of the world to be their property, and the work with jewels a species monopoly. About once a year or a year and a half, Ordersee was on the receiving end when bands of goblins from the Shining Crossroads and small groups of dwarves from the Golden Dead End clashed right on the streets away from the center. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers. The gunsmiths of the Steel Artel invariably rose to the aid of the jeweler dwarfs, and the noisy battle sometimes stretched out for the whole night, then calming down, then flaring up. The guards of the Ordersee did not intervene until the first musket volleys sounded, after which they dispersed the troublemakers.

Valemar was home to many more sentients, but almost all of them lived outside the dominion of human dominion. In the eastern part of the Westerreich, in particular in Solomey and Estre, in addition to gnomes and goblins, halflings could be found, and in the very south of the Left Wing lay the reserved Lontil forest, the abode of elves. Orcs were thrown into the sea before Grogan was born, but they did not drown (which some witty minstrels saw as a completely natural phenomenon) and were able to populate the Green Isles. Genglars, najas and dozens of intelligent beings lived side by side with people in the countries of the Right Wing, in the Free Marches, Imem-Muahit [In translation - Seven Deserts, formerly called Varkhali-Debura-Muahit (Great White Desert). A union of states located on the body of a vast desert on the Right Wing, created by the necromancers of the Black Sands.], River Kingdom,

Other intelligent creatures also lived near Riven - hobgoblins, for example. Or zulans. Even though people didn't like them. These one-eyed barbarians still troubled the westernmost borders of the kingdom with small raids, and their cruelty has long been a household word.

Thobius walked along the stone embankment above the waters of the wide Mjoln, admired from a distance the facade of the Ordersee Cathedral on the Temple Island, bought a liver tart in a mobile tray and, washing it down with watered cider, counted the statues in Osvorney Square. After looking at the performance of the Marahog performers, the wizard threw several loot at their feet. Meeting people in colorful robes along the way, he greeted them with nods as equals, and if they leaned on staffs while walking, he nodded deeper, saying: “My respect, your power.” He walked and just looked around with pleasure, feeling genuine pleasure from being back in the capital. No matter how hard Tobius convinced himself that life in the dark wilderness was his destiny, the memory of the noisy streets and majestic palaces of the capital never let him go completely.