The Undying Wizard

Начало книги

The enormous reptile lay in a cavern passage, eerily lit by some means surely preternatural; sorcerous, perhaps. Walls and ceiling glowed. The strange illumination was dim, pearly, hardly akin to that of torch or lamp, much less the sun-which could not pierce the cavern’s ceil of earth and rock beneath the man-made pile of masonry that capped the thick natural layer. The pale light emanated from the very walls of the world-old tunnel itself.

In this weird luminous emanation from a source not visible the great reptile lay, a green monster twisted as a vine on rocky soil.

Several times the length of a man the creature was, and nigh as thick. It lay motionless in a great lake of red-brown cruor. The blood had thickened and crusted over in coagulation, so that it shone as if glowing, reflecting the wall-light. The serpent was still. Its eyes, the colour of new flax and large as a man’s eyes, were filmed over.

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