"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Darkwell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

DARKWELL
by Douglas Niles

What Has Gone Before

Tristan Kendrick, Prince of Corwell, stood upon the brink of manhood when the Beast, Kazgoroth, emerged from its fetid pool to savage the land. The insidious monster, often disguised in the flesh of a man, engaged the help of firbolg giants and savage northmen to attack the Ffolk of Corwell.
The prince came of age during this, the Darkwalker War. He returned a lost artifact, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, to his people. He led them to ultimate victory against the Beast. And he found his life's love in the person of Robyn, a maiden who had been raised with him as the king's ward.
Also during the war, Robyn discovered her own deep powers as a druid, harnessing the forces of the earth to work magic and miracles. She loved the prince but faced a deeper calling after the war. She journeyed to pastoral Myrloch Vale to study the ways of her order under the Great Druid of the isles, Genna Moonsinger.
But there she found that the influence of Kazgoroth was not altogether banished. An unnatural army of corpses invaded the vale, and Robyn alone of the druids escaped. The others were imprisoned as stone statues around the scene of their last stand, and as Robyn departed, the vale was turned into a wasteland behind her.
His father murdered, Tristan Journeyed to the neighboring island of CaUidyrr to confront the High King of all the Ffolk. Caught in a rebellion and finally joined by Robyn, Tristan found himself once more victorious, receiving the royal Crown of the Isles. He was crowned High King by the Ffolk, then prepared to return to Corwell.
But still the evil lurked in Myrloch Vale. . . .
The goddess Earthmother wept, her wound a gaping slash across her flesh. The cut was deep, perhaps mortal, but there was none to know her suffering.
She cried out in pain from the scar of black magic, where her body lay torn and ripped from the assault of evil. Though the last convulsion of her power had excised the rot, tearing it from herself and allowing the cool sea towash the wound, still the pain continued.
The goddess cried out for her servants, her devoted druids. These human caretakers were trapped in a prison of the mother's own invention. They stood frozen as stone statues around the blasted scene of their final defeat. The protection of the goddess had imprisoned them thus, saving them at least from death. One druid, and one alone, had escaped petrification.
And the goddess wept for the Ffolk, her people. War ra v-aged their fair land relentlessly, striking each of the four kingdoms with cruel force. Many Ffolk died while resisting the attack ofnorthman or foul beast, but still peace eluded them.
Now her grief manifested itself in the glowering clouds that hung low over the isles, and the unnatural chill that sucked the summer's warmth from the land and, though the season was but early autumn, brought a winterlike frost. Her pain sent whirlwinds exploding from her soul, twisting funnels of violence that tore at the land, unmindful of the hurt they caused.
Yet the land was not altogether without hope. For the first
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time in many decades, the king of the Ffolk was a true hero, as was right and proper. And though one lone druid remained free, she was a druid of great faith and steadily growing might.
But they were both very young, and the goddess was very old. She doubted that she could live long enough to see them prevail.
Or fail.
12
THE OBSCENE
Heavy breakers assaulted the stone barrier protecting Llewellyn Harbor. They crashed against the rocky rampart, sending clouds of spray through the air, roaring in frustration as the eternal power of the sea dispersed against the fundamental strength of stone.
A lone figure stood near the end of the breakwater. The man was heavily wrapped in oilskins and ignored the salty shower that doused him each time a fresh wave expended itself. If anything, he relished the bracing cold of the water.
The man was young, but he was a king of many lands. He had bested creatures foul and wizards of might, yet he felt unsure of his own strength. He held the love of a strong woman in his heart, but still his future remained a muddled blur before him.
Tristan Kendrick claimed as ancestors a long line of kings, but for two centuries the Kendricks ruled only the small, sparsely populated land of Corwell. Now, as High King of the Ffolk, King Kendrick accepted fealty also from Moray, Snowdown, and mighty Callidyrr.
The king had recently won a war, the Darkwalker War, besting a supernatural beast and its human allies. He had claimed as allies the graceful warriors of the Ltewyrr and the doughty fighters of the dwarven realms. His blade, the Sword of Cymrych Hugh, girded him as ample proof of his heroism, for he had returned the weapon to the Ffolk after many decades of its absence.
Finally the man turned from the sea, walking slowly along the rocky barrier toward the welcoming lights of Llewellyn
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Town. The sea had given him no answers. Nothing, it seemed, could give him the answers. And there were so many questions.
The eagle soared slowly. Its eyes, dulled by fatigue, searched the barren landscape below, seeking any morsel of lifesaving food.
But the bird saw nothing. No trace of animal, small or large, appeared across the stretches of brown marsh. Even the trees of the once-vast forests now resembled gaunt skeletons, barren of leaves and needles, surrounded by heaps of rotting compost.
The great bird swirled, confused. It sought a glimpse of the sea, or even the high coastal moor. But everywhere the view yielded scenes of rot and corruption. With a sharp squawk of despair, the eagle soared off in a new direction.
A sudden movement caught the eagle's keen eye, and it swept into a diving circle to investigate. But it pulled up short, screeching its frustration at the shambling figure on the ground. Though the creature smelled of carrion, it moved. Though it moved, it was not alive.
Growing desperate now, the eagle soared away in search of something, anything, to eat. It came upon a region of utter desolation, a place that made the past reaches of barren land seem fertile. The predator flew north, over a stagnant brown stream. It crossed a reach of dead, fallen timber.
Finally it came to a small pond. The water was surrounded by twenty stone statues, remarkably lifelike human figures in various poses of battle. The surface of the pond itself was an impenetrable black.
But what was that? The eagle saw, or imagined, motion below that flat, lightless surface. It could have been a trout, swimming complacently in the center of the pond. It could have been anything.
The bird tucked its wings and plummeted toward the shadow. The water rushed up to meet it, and the true nature of the dark shape became visible. The eagle shrieked
14
DARK WELL
and struck outward with its wings, slowing but not halting its descent. One claw, still extended to clutch the imagined prey, touched the surface of the black water.
A crackling hiss broke the silence, and for a moment the eagle froze, outlined in blue light. In another instant, the bird was gone, though no ripple disturbed the surface of the dark pond. A lone white feather, caught by an errant breath of wind, drifted upward and fluttered forlornly to settle upon the muddy shore of the Darkwell.
Bhaal, god of murder, relished the eagle's death. Though he still dwelt in his fiery bier upon the distant and hostile plane of Gehenna, the minor snuffing of life in a place unimaginably remote was power transmitted directly to his foul essence.
Such was the power of the Darkwell. And such was the power of Bhaal.
The patron god of any who would slay another of his kind, Bhaal found plentiful worshipers among the humans and other creatures of the many worlds. Foremost among them were the people of the Forgotten Realms.
It was in the Realms that the eagle flew, and died, and it was in the Realms that Bhaal's most powerful minions had been fought and bested by these humans who called themselves the Ffolk. Now Bhaal focused his entire baneful nature on the land claimed by these humans. Now one servant, a cleric of great power and even greater evil, still remained to do his bidding.
Slowly Bhaal's vengeance took form. The humans who obsessed him would die, but only after everything they loved had died before them. He himself would see to that. No longer would he trust his revenge to the talents of his minions.
To this end, Bhaal fostered the Darkwell.
A deep laugh rumbled in his cavernous breast as he pondered the history of the pool. Only a month before, it had been a crystalline symbol of hope and purity, a Moonwell, sacred shrine of the goddess Earthmother. Her body was