"De Camp, L Sprague - RK 3 - The Unbeheaded King UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

THE PALACE

LARGE COPPER BATHTUB, ITS POLISHED SURFACE REDLY

reflecting the light of the settmg sun, soared above the
snow-clad peaks of the Lograms. It wove around the lof-
tiest summits and scraped over the lower ones, betimes
with but a few cubits to spare.

"Gorax!" yelled one of the two men in the tub "I have
commanded thee not to miss those peaks so straitlyi
Wbuldst stop my old heart from sheer fright2 Next time,
go around!"

"What's his answer7" asked the other man.

The first cocked his head as if listening. At last he
spoke. "He says he is fain to get this )oumey over with
He also begs that I suffer him to alight on one of these
mountams to rest, but I know better. Did I permit him,
his last labor for me were completed. Away the fiend would
flit to his native dimension, leaving us stranded on an icy
mountain top."

The speaker was a small, lean, brown-skinned man in
a coarse brown robe. The wind of the tub's motion nppled
the silky white hair that hung down beneath his bulbous

THE UNBEHEADED KING

white turban and fluttered his vast white beard. He was
Karadur, a seer and wizard from Mulvan.

The other tub-nder was a large man m late youth, with
a ruddy complexion further reddened by the mountain
winds, deep-set dark eyes and black hair and beard, and a
scar across his face that put a slight kink in his nose. This
was lonan of Ardarnai m Konoli, once King of Xylar and,
before and since, a poet, mercenary soldier, professional
taleteller, bookkeeper, clockmaker, and surveyor.

Continuing an argument that had begun before they
narrowly missed the mountain peak, Karadur said. "But,
my son' To rush unprepared into such an adventure were
a sure formula for disaster We should instruct Gorax to
set us down m some safe land, where we have fnends, and
plan our next move."

"By the time we've done planning," said (onan, "the
Xylanans will have gotten word of my flight from Penem-