Lightnings Daughter by Mary Herbert (read me a book txt) 📕

vermin before this, but he had the support of the powerful merchant guilds and she had not been ready to face them in an outright confrontation.

Well, after this night the Kadoa family would cease to exist and the merchant guilds would come groveling. This night she would have her gorthling.

In front of her, Branth leaned over the big, leather-bound tome on the table and emotionlessly recited the words of the spel . An aura of power was building around him. Even the Fon could see the faint greenish glow. Yet the man seemed unaware of anything but the book and the smal golden cage on the table before him.

His voice intoned unceasingly through the long, complicated spel . In the light of the small lamp the Fon could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and a faint trembling begin to shake his frame. Then, to her delight, a tiny pinhole of light appeared, hovering in the center of the cage. She knew from reading the book that the pinhole was an opening to the immortal world of gods, dreams, and powers unlimited.

Slowly Branth straightened and began the second part of the spel : to widen the door and cal a gorthling out of his realm.

The Fon watched impatiently. She wanted to rip the hole wider with her own hands and snatch the gorthling into her domain, but she had learned enough to know the evil creatures were dangerous and had to be handled with care and cunning. She curbed her frustration and watched as the hole began to open bit by bit. When the hole was a handspan wide, Branth suddenly stopped.

"What's the matter, you fool?" hissed the Fon. "Go on!"

Branth appeared to struggle within himself, ready to say something. His mouth worked, and his hands tightened into fists. "No," he groaned between clenched teeth. "Not this."

The Fon stepped forward, her eyes blazing. "Do it!" she screeched.

The exiled chief blanched. The days of drugs and mind control slowly destroyed the feeble vestiges of his will. Like a living corpse, he turned back to the tome and the cage.

As he resumed the spel , the green aura grew brighter. The magic about him increased, widening the hole of light in the cage. The light grew so dazzling that the Fon had to shield her eyes.

She blinked once before she saw it.

A small, wizened face peered through the hole. The Fon held her breath. Branth had lost control of the creature at the same point during his previous attempt at the spell. This time, however, he did not fail. He chanted the incantation, slowly drawing the gorthling out of his world and into the cage.

The creature came cautiously. He climbed out of the hole one limb at a time and finally crouched, snarling, in the corner of the cage. Branth said a command, and the hole of light snapped shut.

The Fon's eyes took a moment to adjust to the faint light, then she stared in horrified fascination at the thing in the golden cage. The gorthling resembled a smal , incredibly ancient monkey with long, twisted limbs and the face of a mummified child. The Fon suppressed a shudder as the creature turned his inhuman eyes toward her. Before he could look her in the eyes, she turned away and snapped to Branth, "Put the col ar on the thing."

This was the most dangerous part of the spell, for the sorcerer had to put a collar of gold on the gorthling in order to properly control him. However, the tome stated in no uncertain terms that the gorthling could not be touched by human hands. The Fon did not know why, and she did not want to find out.

Branth reached for a long-handled clamp and the golden collar. He had practiced many times with the clamp upon various small animals; he was now quite deft at snapping the collar around creatures in the cage. But neither he nor the Fon had counted on the cunning and agility of the gorthling.

He zipped around the small cage, avoiding the collar and Branth's best efforts with ease. Time and again the sorcerer almost had the collar about his neck only to have the gorthling slip away. The Fon grew wild with frustration. "Collar the thing!" she screamed.

At that moment, the collar dropped off the clamp and fell to the cage floor by the edge of the bars.

Branth, his consciousness numbed by the Fon's poisons, simply reacted. He stuck his fingers through the bars to retrieve the collar.

"No!" the Fon shrieked.

Even as she sprang to grab the man's arm, the gorthling pounced on Branth's fingers and sank his teeth into the man's skin. Branth howled in agony and tried to yank his hand through the bars, but the gorthling clung to his fingers, ripping off chunks of flesh and gulping them down.

The taste of blood drove the creature into a frenzy. He screeched and clawed and tore Branth's hand to shreds. The man writhed and screamed so violently, the Fon could not get near to help him.

All at once, the gorthling fell quiet. The Fon stepped back, her eyes wide in dread, for the creature was beginning to grow. His body pulsed with a lurid red light and blood dripped from his mouth. In just a moment he was as big as the cage.

Appal ed, the Fon backed to the door, leaving Branth to his doom. She hoped the creature would remain confined in the cage, yet even as her hands fumbled for the latch, the gorthling burst the bars of the gilded prison. Branth and the Fon froze.

Still clinging to the sorcerer's bloody hand, the gorthling turned his eyes on the Fon. Across the room, the Fon caught his gaze and was drawn into the black depths of his eyes. She found herself gazing into an evil she never knew existed, an evil so powerful and destructive it swallowed her rational thought and emptied her mind