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

tion. Naitachal had been able to assure the King that
his son's talent was considerable, and that all would be
well.
In many ways, his choice of lifework made him a
less likely mark. The older brothers would certainly
make better targets than he would. However, Alaire
could not ignore the possibility that he could be sin-
gled out by young toughs looking for a fight Naitachal
had often pointed this out when he was sitting in the
dust after a thorough trouncing.
For a year Alaire had trained under the King's Bard
Laureate, Gawaine, and under his guidance convinced
everyone that he had an exceptional degree of musi-
cal, and magical, talent. However, Gawaine was
getting no younger; he had other students besides
Alaire, as well as the enormous burden demanded by
his office of Laureate. Gawaine eventually found it
increasingly difficult to keep up with the workload.
Since Alaire was hardly an ordinary, common student,
Gawaine had known he ran the risk of favoring him
over the other bardlings. It would have been a situ-
ation fraught with trouble for a younger man than
Gawaine; for the Laureate, it was something he simply
did not have the strength to deal with.
By this time Alaire was eight, and he had heard
enough tales about Naitachal to be both excited and
alarmed by having him as his Master. Though he had
"always" assumed Naitachal would be his teacher, he
certainly didn't know what to expect from the mysteri-
ous elf; the Necromancers becoming a Bard was
bizarre enough. He had never seen a Dark Elf before;
he'd had no notion that his father had used the name
"Dark Elf" so literally.
In the bright, airy colors of the court, Naitachal had
stood out like a drop of ink on a white lace tablecloth.
The black cloak he wore habitually flowed about him
as if it were liquid, and the tunic, hose and boots
seemed to absorb whatever light hit them, as if the
Bard's body was a place that canceled daylight. Top-
ping the darkness was his straight, silver hair that hung
down his back, long as all elves wore it, and swept
gracefully from side to side as he turned. His brilliant
blue eyes, twin pools of color in the smooth black skin
of that ageless face, burned right through Alaire when
they first met. They distracted him, even now, during
sword practice. Alaire soon found out Naitachal was
no ordinary Dark Elf, if there could be such a thing.
The somber darkness that seemed to follow him wher-
ever he went was only deceptive camouflage; within
lurked an absurdly cheerful Bard, a master of his