"Bertin,.Joanne.-.The.Last.Dragonlord.(1998).ShareConnector.com" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bertin Joanne)

The Lady sat in a high-backed wooden chair. Her long fingers cradled a cup of tea as though seeking its warmth. She looked unreal in the cold light. Even the pale albino's eyes that watched him seemed colorless. She beckoned.
As he crossed the room, he studied her. She had been very young, he knewЧonly fifteenЧwhen she'd Changed for the first time. Their kind aged slowly; how many centuries had the Lady seen to give her face that delicate tracery of wrinkles? After more than six centuries, he himself still looked only twenty-eight.
Without thinking, Linden touched the wine-colored birthmark that spread across his right temple and eyelid. It was his Marking, as the Lady's icy paleness was hers. He'd hated it until he'd discovered what it meant: that he was one of the great weredragons, the lords and servants of humankind. A Dragonlord.
Linden knelt before the Lady. Setting his hands on his thighs, he bowed till his forehead almost touched the floorЧthe salute of a Yerrin clansman to his lord. "Lady?" he said.
The Lady studied him for a long moment. Then she said, "Yes, I was right. You will be the third."
Linden frowned slightly as he accepted a cup of tea from Sirl. And what does she mean byЧ
Memory returned and with it came understanding. Lleld, smallest of the Dragonlords, had been late to breakfast that morning, bubbling over with news and speculationЧmore of the latter than the former. Linden thanked the gods he hadn't taken her up on the wager she'd demanded when he'd laughed at her notions. Sometimes Lleld's wild predictions had a way of becoming real, and he'd no wish to lose that particular cloak brooch.
The Lady's long, pale fingers tapped against the cup. "You have never sat in judgement, have you, Linden? Then perhaps it is time, little oneЧ"
She stopped at his chuckle. "Impudent scamp, you know very well what I mean!" she scolded with an affectionate smile.
Linden hid a grin as he drank. Over six and a half feet tall in his stocking feet, he towered over everyone else at Dragonskeep. The Lady herself barely came up to his chest. But with only a little more than six centuries behind him he was the youngest Dragonlord, the "little one."
And, to his great grief, likely the last.
"You've heard by now that a messenger from Cassori arrived early this morning, yes?" she said.
Linden nodded. "Lleld said something about it at breakfast; she'd heard it from the servants. Is it about the regency? I'd thought that was already settled some time ago and the queen's drowning proven to be an accident. Wasn't there an investigation?"
"There was; it found no cause for suspicion. And now that the period of mourning is over, we had all thought Duke Beren was to be confirmed as regent. But then came this challenge, the messenger said. The Cassorin council is divided; they cannot settle the matter and many of the barons are becoming restless. Luckily the messenger came before the Saethe and I left to confer with the truedragons."
Of course; on the morrow, the Lady and the Dragonlords' own councilЧ the SaetheЧwere to consult with the truedragons on a matter of grave and growing concern to the Dragonlords. For there had been no new Dragonlords, not even a hint of, one, since his own First Change. It explained the Lady's haste, then, in choosing judgesЧif Lleld had guessed right once again.
Aloud he said, "Most of the Cassorin royal family are dead now, aren't they?" Bad luck attended this reign, it seemed; he'd seen its like before.
"Yes; all save for a little boy, Prince Rann, and two uncles: the challenger, Peridaen, a prince of the blood, and Duke Beren, who has a strong lateral claim to the throne."
Linden considered as he sipped his tea. Another of Lleld's guesses confirmed. He went on, "So the Cassorin messenger came to ask for Dragonlord judgement." At the Lady's nod, he smiled. "That was Lleld's guess. She also predicted Kief and Tarlna would be sent as arbitrators, since they're Cassorin and have done this before."
"Lleld," the Lady said, sounding exasperated, "is entirely too clever by half. Someday she'll guess wrong. But not this time. Kief and Tarlna are indeed going to Cassori. And so, I have decided, are you, as the third judge required." The Lady set her empty cup on the low table to one side of her chair. Sirl appeared and took it.
Linden carefully schooled his expression to stay blank. A mission with Tarlna, who chided him at every chance for his lackЧby her prim standardsЧof dignity as befitted a Dragonlord? Oh, joy. He wondered what he'd done to deserve this.
Yet to sit in judgement was his duty as a Dragonlord. But why him, Yerrin by birth, and the youngest, least experienced Dragonlord to boot? True, he spoke CassorinЧa talent for languages seemed to go with being a Dragonlord. But there were others far more experienced in such things. Surely one of them was to be preferred.
He held his tongue.
"The three of you will leave in the morning. Since there is no time to be lost, you will all Change and fly to Cassori. The court has not left the city for the summer yet; the claimants shall await you in the great palace in Casna." The Lady smiled. "I know you'd rather ride Shan, but I fear Cassori cannot afford the time it would take." She beckoned Linden to rise.
He offered her his arm as she rose from her chair and escorted her from the room.
They paused in the doorway of the hall, watching the dancing that began every night after the evening meal. The Lady leaned easily on his arm, nodding her head slightly in time to the music.
Linden said, "Lady, if I may ask . . . Why did you choose me? Kief and Tarlna, yes, they are Cassorin. I'm not. So?" He waited as she considered her answer.
Finally she said, "For the sake of a feeling that I have, little one." Her soultwin Kelder emerged from the dancers and came toward them. She held out her hand to him.
As Kelder led her into the dance, the Lady looked back. "But whether this matter needs you," she said, "or you need this matter, I don't know."
On his way to his chambers Linden met Lleld coming the other way down the hall.
"Hello, little one," Lleld said with a grin as he stopped to talk to her.
"You love being able to say that to me, don't you?" Linden replied, unable to keep an answering smile from his face as he towered over her. Lleld's Marking was her height; the little Dragonlord was no taller than a child of perhaps ten years. "You weren't at the dancing tonight," he said.
"Ah, noЧI had something else to do," she said. "So tell meЧwas I right?"
He nodded. "About everything."

She heaved a sigh of regret. "Blast, but I wish you'd taken that wager."
"I've learned," he said dryly.
"You're to be the third judge, aren't you?" She cocked her head at him.
Laughing, he said, "Right again, you redheaded imp. I just hope it won't take too long."
"Or be too boring; regency debates usually are, you know," Lleld said helpfully, "as well as taking years to settle, sometimes. A pity this isn't one of your friend Otter's tales, isn't it? It would be much more interesting then."
One of Otter'sЧThat would be all he'd need on top of Tarlna's company. Linden asked in some exasperation, "And what did I do that you should wish that on me, Lady Mayhem?"
Lleld just grinned. "Ah, well; I'd best be off. It's getting late." And with that she sauntered off down the hall.
Linden continued on to his rooms, shaking his head. The things Lleld thought up ... And she had looked entirely too innocent as she'd walked away.
When he entered his chambers, he found Varn, his servant, almost finished packing for him. Sirl must have sent word on.
Varn looked up. "The boys are already asleep. They stayed up as long as they could to say good-bye, but..." He smiled and shook his head.
"Tell them I'm sorry," Linden said. And he was; he was fond of his servant's twin sons.
The golden-furred kir straightened up from closing the last buckle on a leather pack. "They'll miss their pillow fights," Varn said with a grin. "Though I should warn you that they've bribed Lleld to join them for the next great battle. Something about honey cakes, I think it was."
Linden shook his head, laughing. "Have they now, the little hellions? And that explains where Lleld was. Thanks for the warning. Ah, well; I shouldn't be gone long."
"You hope," Varn said as he eased Linden's small harp into its traveling case.
Linden sat on the wide stone rail of the balcony. Behind him was the open door to his rooms, some ten of his long strides across the balcony floor. He looked out into the night, savoring the coolness, the spicy scent of the night-blooming callitha rising from the gardens below.
Varn had gone home to wife and sons long ago. Now there was only one thing left to arrange before sleeping; Lleld's earlier comment had given him an idea. Closing his eyes, Linden made ready to "cast his call on the wind" as the Dragonlords said.