Renegade Wizards

Начало книги

The wizard Pecas was troubled. His forehead wrinkled fretfully, as he ambled between the rows of books on creaking knees with the help of a stout oak cane. His bony fingers danced lightly over the volumes, and he brought his face and flickering candle dangerously close to the stacks of brittle pages.

The room was rank with the tang of aged parchments and ancient stone that captured all the tortured smells of decades past. It was a fine library, to be sure, one of the most impressive private collections of any wizard, but it was going to waste in the dungeon of the small keep, at least as far as some were concerned. The other White Robes coveted the rare works within the library, but they politely waited … waited for Pecas to bequeath the collection to them then respectfully drop dead.

But the elderly Pecas seemed more obstinate about clinging to life with each passing month. Some of the younger wizards joked that should a drop of water ever touch his deeply wrinkled skin, why, he might swell up to twice his size like a raisin returning to the glory of a grape. Then, of course, others said he was always a raisin, one nurtured on a cold and soured soil.

Читать дальше →