Dool - стр. 2
“You won’t find such a girl.”
– Would you like to make a bet?
In the dark eyes flashing with excitement, in the stubbornly upturned chin, Ser Gaunt suddenly saw himself, young, not yet really learning to restrain his hot temper. Son, flesh from flesh, blood from blood… an apple from an apple tree, as the common people say. And it’s true, how can one not admit it – it’s a bull’s eye!
“I haven’t spanked you enough,” grumbled the high-born sieur. – With ignoramuses like yourself, you bet on clicks. Here's my will for you. I allow you to study. But so that no later than the next harvest festival he introduces me to his chosen one. Of course, I will negotiate with her family myself, but the girl must agree.
– But there’s less than a year left!
– Did you hope to remain single until old age? This winter I intended to find a worthy match for you, so consider that I also received a reprieve.
Marius grunted with displeasure, but bowed, acknowledging his father’s will, and that was the end of the argument. And an hour later, having collected the necessary things, hugged his mother and sisters and accepted his father’s blessing, albeit reluctantly, the heir to the del Marre family clenched the portal amulet given by his future mentor in his fist and disappeared from the castle of his ancestors, as if it had never happened. And in the ancient tower in the middle of the reserved Deer Log, in the very one that people knew as the home of the master necromancer Turvon, a student appeared.
***
Oleniy Log, an ancient protected forest, is located very close to the capital – you can reach it on foot in half a day, and the horseman can quickly gallop there. But both on foot and on horseback took the tenth route around it, trade routes were bypassed, even though the convoys lost a few extra days on the long journey, and even poachers were afraid to go there, although everyone knew that the royal rangers were not guarding this forest.
Everyone knew that in the Deer Log, behind the windbreaks and swamps, among the ancient oaks and hazel thickets, the Altar and the Tower were hidden. Everyone knew that noticing them even from a distance was not good, and even meeting their owners was a completely disastrous thing. But no one could indicate exactly which path would lead you there; Well, how do you come across it by chance? It’s better not to set foot in the forest at all.
On the Altar they talked all sorts of tall tales. Whose is it, what powers did they bow to there, what sacrifices did they make? Nobody knew for certain; even in old chronicles there were no mentions of it. Make up whatever stories you want, one more terrible than the other, you still can’t check it!
The tower is a different matter. People did not know how old it was and who lived in it before, but for almost two hundred years it served as a dwelling for a necromancer magician. Master Turvon, tall and thin, as if withered, with a piercing gaze of eyes as black as hellish tar, and the same black hair tied in a ponytail at the back of his head, has not changed at all in two hundred years. That is, maybe a few wrinkles and gray hairs have increased, but who will notice such a trifle? What’s more important is that the way his great-grandfathers described him is how his great-grandchildren see him.