"Bard's Tale 03 - Prison of Souls - Mercedes Lackey & Mark Shepherd 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bard's Tale)

is to say, to return her to her original fairy form."
Alaire nodded somberly. "Only full blood humans
can sit on the throne of Althea." Inwardly, he was both
excited and a little appalled. A fairy? In the royal fam-
ily? I would really like to know how that happened! If
Carlotta is half fairy, my great-great-great-grand-
father must have Ч ahem. His ears burned as he won-
dered how a human and a diminutive fairy could
have Ч
Stranger things have happened, I suppose.
Naitachal continued. "Our party would have failed
if not for Kevin's leadership. He made us all work
together in spite of our continuous bickering. Not sur-
prising, since the Count intended us to fail, and chose
us for that reason. We were an Amazon, a fairy, myself
and a White Elven fighter. Anyone would have
thought we would never stay together for more than a
day. We became certain, in the course of some inter-
esting adventures, that Count Volmar had sent us
away so Carlotta could find the manuscript. "
I would truly like to hear that in detail, Alaire
thought, but Naitachal was obviously trying to make
this a short tale.
"In time we returned to the castle, discovered that
'Charina's' captors had 'released' her. The Count
treated us like heroes even though we had done
nothing to rescue her." His expression became grim.
"We were all highly suspicious, and as a precaution I
spent an evening fortifying Kevin with magical
protection. We were certain now that Carlotta was
somewhere around in disguise, possibly as Charina,
although we could not be sure. When Kevin finally
found the manuscript, Carlotta was there beside him.
She knew what it was, and she wanted it. If we hadn't
fled Volmar's castle when we did, she would have
seized it and destroyed us. She pursued us with her
magics. Not all of us survived those magics..."
His voice trailed off, and Alaire saw something he
had never seen before on his Master's face.
Grief.
He dared not interrupt, although he was burning to
hear the end of it all.
Naitachal seemed to shake himself, and completed
the tale. "When we returned to Volmar's castle it was
with a band of some traveling musicians. Kevin
thought they were his Master's human friends, but
actually they were elves and allies of King Amber. Vol-
mar was staging a grand event of some sort, inviting
nobles from all over, and we suspected it had some-
thing to do with Carlotta. We knew we had to work