"Brooks, Terry - Jerle Shannara 01 - Ilse Witch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brooks Terry)

He'd developed both, and they had served him well. This time,
he knew, he had something of real value
He unfastened the cage door and took out one of the strange
birds she had given him. They were wicked-looking things with
sharp eyes and beaks, swept-back wings, and narrow bodies. They
watched him whenever he came in sight, or took them out of the
cages, or fastened a message to their legs, as he was doing now.
They watched him as if marking his efficiency for a report they
would make later. He didn't like the way they looked at him, and he
seldom looked hack
When the message was in place, he tossed the bird into the air,
and it rose into the darkness and disappeared. They flew only at
night, these birds. Sometimes, they returned with messages from
her. Sometimes, they simply reappeared, waiting to be placed back
in their cages. He never questioned their origins, It was better, he
sensed, simply to accept their usefulness.
He stared into the night sky. He had done what he could. There
was nothing to do now, but wait. She would tell him what was
needed next. She always did.
Closing the doors to the pen so that the cages were hidden once
more, he crept silently back the way he had come.
Two days later, Allardon Elessedil had just emerged from a long
session with the Elven High Council centered on the renewal of
trade agreements with the cities of Callahorn and on the seemingly
endless war they fought as allies with the Dwarves against the Fed-
eration, when he was advised that a Wing Rider was waiting to
speak to him. It was late in the day, and he was tired, but the Wing
Rider had flown all the way to Arborlon from the southern seaport
of Bracken Clell, a two-day journey, and was refusing to deliver his
message to anyone but the King. The aide who advised Allardon of
the Wing Rider's presence conveyed quite clearly the other's deter-
mination not to be swayed on this issue.
The Elf King nodded and followed his aide to where the Wing
Rider waited. His arrangement with the Wing Hove demanded that
he accede to any request for privacy in the conveyance of mes-
sages. Pursuant to a contract drawn up in the early years of Wren
Elessedil's rule, the Wing Riders had been serving the Land Elves as
scouts and messengers along the coast of the Blue Divide for more
than 130 years. They were provided with goods and coin in ex-
change for their services, and it was an arrangement that the Elven
Kings and Queens had found useful on more than one occasion. If
the Wing Rider who waited had asked to speak with Allardon per-
sonally, then there was good reason for the request, and he was not
about to ignore it.
With Home Guards Perin and Wye flanking him protectively,
he trailed after his aide as they departed the High Council and
walked back through the gardens to the Elessedil palace home. Al-
lardon Elessedil had been King for more than twenty years, since
the death of his mother, the Queen Aine. He was of medium height
and build, still fit and trim in spite of his years, his mind sharp and