Flint the King (Preludes Book 5) by Mary Kirchoff & Douglas Niles

Author:Mary Kirchoff & Douglas Niles [Kirchoff, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780786963331
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast Publishing
Published: 2012-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

Beads of perspiration joined the streaks that flowed down Pitrick’s temples, pooling above his lips. His thick tongue licked the sweat away unconsciously, since he was intent on the heavy, leather-bound tome beneath his eyes. The savant was seated behind the burnished granite desk that rose out of the floor in his cozy study to the right and three steps above the main chamber. To his left and flank were floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with heavy, bound books, faded scroll cases, a beaker of teeth, patches of fur, a harpy skull, an ivory ogre tusk, quill pens and ink bottles, ground toenails, a flask containing the breath of seven babies, and other assorted dried ingredients. The shelves to his right were reserved for bottles filled with raw components of every imaginable color, odor, and viscosity, including frog glands in phosphorescent swamp water, golden griffon blood, red-hot lava, the sweat glands of a bugbear, mercury, giant slug spittle, and rendered virgin rattlesnake.

Pitrick scanned the last page of the spellbook, the soft, fleshy tip of his index finger tracing the words. Frowning, he slapped the book shut on its front and looked up to stare into the flames in the hearth.

He would have to use his wish scroll. The spells to animate the dead, resurrect a corpse, or clone someone all required the dead body, or at least part of it. The savant also considered forcing Perian to reincarnate, but there was no way to control or predict the subject’s new form, and Pitrick had no use for Perian as an insect. Besides, it, too, required the body.

A half-day’s research had led the derro to choose one of the most simple spells there were. No bulky, disgusting, or hard-to-find components, no long incantations to memorize, no pyrotechnics to awe observers. Wishes seldom failed to be incarnated—something always happened—though casters often did not get what they thought they’d asked for. That was because the exact meaning of their words was always carried out, and they had not paused to consider the precision of their language.

A wish also carried a heavy price: it instantly aged the caster five years, whether he chose to summon a bowl of gruel or a copper-haired frawl back from non-existence. But that was a small price to pay for someone with a dwarf’s long life expectancy.

The savant turned to his shelves and sorted through the piles of scrolls until he found the one he wanted: a fragile roll of parchment edged with faded red ink. It was the greatest treasure he had discovered among his mentor’s belongings after he had poisoned the old wizard many years before. Pitrick had been saving it for a special occasion, and his fingers hesitated before he tugged the ends of the satin ribbon that held it closed. He had to carefully phrase his wish before he opened the scroll and unleashed its power.

Slipping it under his arm, he paced around the narrow space surrounding his desk to position himself in front of the hearth, the pain of his foot momentarily forgotten.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.