The Wizard in Waiting

Начало книги

Those were the first words of the Imperial House of Chaomonous in over a thousand years. The second words followed logically from the first.

Therefore, the dragon is dead.

The Imperial House did not speak as men do. How could it, lacking lungs and a mouth? Yet to one who knew castle speech, the groaning of aged door sills or a whistling draft down a hallway would have expressed thoughts as clearly and purposefully as the words of human language. Condensation formed on all the interior walls of the palace as the House struggled for understanding, reaching for the memories stored within its drapes and dungeons scenes that had been registered within it somehow, even when it had slept through the years.

The dragon was dead that much was obvious. For untold centuries, the accursed Vicia-Heinox had been discussed and cursed within these halls.

The dragon had straddled the Central Pass of the One Land, obstructing traffic and making a general nuisance of himself. Such a nuisance, in fact, that the One Land had been broken into three warring states, and the Central Pass had come to be called Dragonsgate.

Читать дальше →