Read Online Sourcethief (Book 3) by J.S. Morin - Free Book Online Page A

tamest of Loramar's horrors, he
was not sure he could bear the ones he had yet to uncover.
    "You are not so bad-looking, Councilor Fehr. I
almost regret not treating you with more respect," Aolyn remarked. Jinzan
heard a jingling from beside his head and turned to see two eyes looking him up
and down from adjacent chains. He shuddered.
    The door at the end of the corridor was well-warded,
as promised. Standing in the macabre corridor, he felt comforted by the
familiar glow of runes in the aether-vision and lost himself for a time,
tracing them with his eyes (which were safely ensconced in their sockets, where
he liked them). He picked a rune at random and began examining how it was connected
to the runes about it, finding interactions and cross-links, modifiers and
amplification runes. Each of them he knew, drawn from the same basic runes that
had been handed down from the age of dragons. The ward was impressive in its
complexity, spread across a door half again his height and writ in characters
no larger than his thumbnail. It would take seasons to unravel it fully.
Testing it and seeing its reactions he might, by trial and experiment, divine
enough to disable it.
    Jinzan had failed Megrenn. Zorren was burned and
overrun with Kadrin rabble. The High Council was in exile, their allies poised
beneath the headsman's axe. He had no time for academics, no time to research
how the Great Necromancer had protected his studies. He leveled the Staff of
Gehlen at the door.
    "Stand well clear. Do not approach until I have
told you it is safe," Jinzan told his guides, the acolytes of the Cult of
Loramar.
    "As you say, Councilor Fehr," Chioju
replied.
    Jinzan jammed the carved wings of the Staff of
Gehlen against the warded door and activated its power. He watched as ward and
staff fought for aether—the staff to steal it, the ward merely to retain it.
The runes blazed as parts of the ward designed to resist attack sprang to life.
It had kept out all intruders for over a hundred winters, but the ward was
never created to withstand such an assault as Gehlen's creation could call
forth in Jinzan’s hands. The ward's aether flickered.
    Jinzan let loose a tiny jolt of power, causing
cracks in the stone door. Even a small break in his assault on the ward's
defenses was enough for it to replenish itself. He renewed his efforts to drain
it. Like pushing a rock uphill...
    Upon the fourth jolt of force, the door crumbled.
The Grand Necromancer's sanctuary lay open before him.
    "Congratulations, Heir of Loramar," Chioju
said. Jinzan did not turn to regard the acolyte. He stepped over the rubble of
the warded door, more interested in the works of his master.
    * * * * * * *
*
    "You waited well, human," the voice
resonated through Varduk's whole body. Jinzan had warned him what to expect
when dealing with dragons, but standing in the presence of Fr'n'ta'gur awed
him. Even twenty paces distant, the dragon loomed over him. He imagined that he
could walk upright within one of the great reptile's nostrils.
    "Thank you for seeing me, mighty one,"
Varduk replied, thankful as well that the dragon preferred to show off by
speaking his own language fluently. "I have come on a matter of great
import to my people."
    "Your people? I was not aware that you had people any longer," Fr'n'ta'gur said, chuckling at his own joke. Varduk
felt the ground vibrate beneath his feet. He looked up at the ceiling of the
great cavern, worried that the dragon's mirth might bring it down atop him.
    "We are scattered, yes, but we fight on as best
we can. If you know of our plight though, may I assume as well that you know
our cause?" Varduk asked.
    "Oh yes, I have heard of the demon who has
ransacked your lands. He slew one of our kind as well, the foolish Ni'hash'tk,
when she tried to take one of the Kadrins' cities for her whelp. That was an
idea put into her vacant skull by one of your fellows, I believe."
    "It was an endeavor of common cause, mighty
one. One of our sorcerers