The Wizard Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page B

thought, taking a deep breath. This is what we came for . He would have rather fought howlers. He followed Giliead’s quiet footsteps.
    The tunnel wound around, slanting downward, and the humming grew steadily louder. Ilias thought he could hear a faint metallic banging as well. The strange white light grew brighter until the last turn revealed it spilling from a jagged gap in the low ceiling. Ilias stared at it in dismay. That light, without the flicker and color of real flame, was something only wizards made.
    Giliead stepped around it, moving forward. Ilias followed more cautiously. The ability the god had given Giliead to sense the presence of curses had kept them alive on more than one occasion and Ilias was trusting to it now.
    Ilias stopped at the edge of the pool of light, craning his neck to look up. Far overhead he could see reflections on white crystalline stone clinging to an arching cavern roof like so many frozen water droplets. This had to be some other part of the central cavern. A shadow passed over the opening and Ilias ducked back hastily. From somewhere above two voices spoke a rapid spate of words in an unfamiliar tongue with a strange harsh sound to it. Cineth had trade from everywhere but Ilias didn’t think he had ever heard speech like that before. He edged away from the spot of light as Giliead motioned urgently for him to hurry.
    Ahead there was another narrow opening in the side of the tunnel and Giliead climbed the rock to look through. He froze, the set of his shoulders telling Ilias he had seen something shocking. Ilias twitched, impatient to know the worst. Finally Giliead moved aside and Ilias swung up to push in beside him. What he saw made his eyes widen. A hysterical scream seemed the only appropriate response, but he settled for swearing softly under his breath. It was much, much worse than he had ever imagined.
    The opening looked out on a large cavern, the floor only about twenty paces below this level. It was filled with people, dozens of them. They swarmed around a huge structure of bare metal ribs supported on a high scaffold. From the shape outlined by the metal bars it might be a giant ship, maybe a barge, except that the lines were subtly wrong and it was just stupid to build a ship out of metal. The worst part was that they were using curses to construct it; several men, if they were men, had some kind of small torch that emitted a fire so brilliant it was like a captured star. They were playing the torches over the metal, as if melting it into place.
    Ilias shot a worried look at Giliead. His friend’s grim expression was just visible in the reflected light. Yes, we‘re in trouble , he thought. So many wizards.
    But not like Ixion. He had looked and dressed just like a normal man and had even managed to fool everyone into thinking he was one for a time. The people below were anything but normal. Their clothes were drably colored, all dull browns, and they wore half masks of some kind of dark-colored glass over their eyes. Their hair, if they had any, was gathered up under baggy brown caps. Ilias was sweating in the warm damp air but the men below were covered up as if they expected to have to plow through a snowy mountain pass. Their sleeves came down to reach their gloved hands, the collars went up nearly to their chins, leaving only the pale skin around the mouth, nose, and throat exposed.
    And their wizard lights were different from the ones Ixion had used. His had been small silent misty wisps of illumination that floated on the cave breezes; these were giant things a good two paces across, set in metal holders driven into the rock or on high metal stands. Looking at them was like trying to stare into the sun and they made a low hum, the source of the strange noise.
    Then as Ilias watched, a group of howlers came out of another tunnel dragging a bundle of metal poles, watched over by a pair of wizards. The white light gleamed off their slick mottled skin and mad eyes.