"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Legacy of the Draw 2 - Starless Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

"I have my sources," Jarlaxle admitted at length.
Another long moment passed, and still Triel did not blink.
"You asked that I come," Jarlaxle reminded her.
"I demanded," Triel corrected.
Jarlaxle swept into a low, exaggerated bow, snatching off his hat and brushing it out at arm's length. The Baenre daughter's eyes flashed with anger.
"Enough!" she shouted.
"And enough of your games!" Jarlaxle spat back. "You asked that I come to the Academy, a place where I am not comfortable, and so I have come. You have questions, and I, perhaps, have answers."
His qualification of that last sentence made Triel narrow her eyes. Jarlaxle was ever a cagey opponent, she knew as well as anyone in the drow city. She had dealt with the cunning mercenary many times and still wasn't quite sure if she
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had broken even against him or not. She turned and motioned for him to enter the left-hand door instead, and, with another graceful bow, he did so, stepping into a thickly carpeted and decorated room lit in a soft magical glow.
"Remove your boots," Triel instructed, and she slipped out of her own shoes before she stepped onto the plush rug.
Jarlaxle stood against the tapestry-adorned wall just inside the door, looking doubtfully at his boots. Everyone who knew the mercenary knew that these were magical.
"Very well," Triel conceded, closing the door and sweeping past him to take a seat on a huge, overstuffed chair. A rolltop desk stood behind her, in front of one of many tapestries, this one depicting the sacrifice of a gigantic surface elf by a horde of dancing drow. Above the surface elf loomed the nearly translucent specter of a half-drow, haif-spider creature, its face beautiful and serene.
"You do not like your mother's lights?" ]arlaxle asked. "You keep your own room aglow."
Triel bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes once more. Most priestesses kept their private chambers dimly lit, that they might read their tomes. Heat-sensing infravision was of little use in seeing the runes on a page. There were some inks that would hold distinctive heat for many years, but these were expensive and hard to come by, even for one as powerful as Triel.
Jarlaxle stared back at the Baenre daughter's grim expression. Triel was always mad about something, the mercenary mused. "The lights seem appropriate for what your mother has planned," he went on.
"Indeed," Triel remarked, her tone biting. "And are you so arrogant as to believe that you understand my mother's motives?"
"She will go back to Mithril Hall," Jarlaxle said openly, knowing that Triel had long ago drawn the same conclusion.
"Will she?" Triel asked coyly.
The cryptic response set the mercenary back on his heels. He took a step toward a second, less-cushiony chair in the room, and his heel clicked hard, even though he was walking across the incredibly thick and soft carpet.
Triel smirked, not impressed by the magical boots. It
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was common knowledge that Jarlaxle could walk as quietly or as loudly as he desired on any type of surface. His abundant jewelry, bracelets and trinkets seemed equally enchanted, for they would ring and tinkle or remain perfectly silent, as the mercenary desired.
"If you have left a hole in my carpet, I will fill it with your heart," Triel promised as Jarlaxle slumped back comfortably in the covered stone chair, smoothing a fold in the armrest so that the fabric showed a clear image of a black and yellow gee'antu spider, the Underdark's version of the surface tarantula.
"Why do you suspect that your mother will not go?" Jarlaxle asked, pointedly ignoring the threat, though in knowing Triel Baenre, he honestly wondered how many other hearts were now entwined in die carpef s fibers.
"Do I?" Triel asked.
Jarlaxle let out a long sigh. He had suspected that this would be a moot meeting, a discussion where Triel tried to pry out what bits of information the mercenary already had attained, while offering little of her own. Still, when Triel had insisted that Jarlaxle come to her, instead of their usual arrangement, in which she went out from Tier Breche to meet the mercenary, Jarlaxle had hoped for something substantive. It was quickly becoming obvious to Jarlaxle that the only reason Triel wanted to meet in Arach-Tinilith was that, in this secure place, even her mother's prying ears would not hear.
And now, for ali those painstaking arrangements, this all-important meeting had become a useless bantering session.
Triel seemed equally perturbed. She came forward in her chair suddenly, her expression fierce. "She desires a legacy!" the female declared.
Jarlaxle's bracelets tinkled as he tapped his fingers together, thinking that now they were finally getting somewhere.
"The rulership of Menzoberranzan is no longer sufficient for the likes of Matron Baenre," Triel continued, more calmly, and she moved back in her seat. "She must expand her sphere."
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"I had thought your mother's visions Lloth-given," Jar-laxle remarked, and he was sincerely confused by Triel's obvious disdain.
"Perhaps," Triel admitted. "The Spider Queen will welcome the conquest of Mithril Hall, particularly if it, in turn, leads to the capture of that renegade Do'Urden. But there are other considerations."
"Blingdenstone?" Jarlaxle asked, referring to the city of the svirfnebli, the deep gnomes, traditional enemies of the drow.
"That is one," Triel replied. "Blingdenstone is not far off the path to the tunnels connecting Mithril Hall."
"Your mother has mentioned that the svirfnebli might be dealt with properly on the return trip," Jarlaxle offered, figuring that he had to throw some tidbit out if he wanted Triel to continue so openly with him. It seemed to the mercenary that Triel must be deeply upset to be permitting him such an honest view of her most private emotions and fears.
Triel nodded, accepting the news stoically and without surprise. "There are other considerations," she repeated. "The task Matron Baenre is undertaking is enormous and will require allies along the way, perhaps even illithid allies."
The Baenre daughter's reasoning struck Jarlaxle as sound. Matron Baenre had long kept an illithid consort, an ugly and dangerous beast if Jarlaxle had ever seen one. He was never comfortable around the octopus-headed humanoids. Jarlaxle survived by understanding and outguessing his enemies, but his skills were sorely lacking where iliithids were concerned. The mind flayers, as members of the evil race were called, simply didn't think the same way as other races and acted in accord with principles and rules that no one other than an illithid seemed to know.
Still, the dark elves had often dealt successfully with the illithid community. Menzoberranzan housed twenty thousand skilled warriors, while the iliithids in the region numbered barely a hundred. Triel's fears seemed a bit overblown.
Jarlaxle didn't tell her that, though. Given her dark and volatile mood, the mercenary preferred to do more listening than speaking.
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Triel continued to shake her head, her expression typically sour. She leaped up from the chair, her black-and-purple, spider-adorned robes swishing as she paced a tight circle.
"It will not be House Baenre alone," Jarlaxle reminded her, hoping to comfort Triel. "Many houses show lights in their windows."
"Mother has done well in bringing the city together," Triel admitted, and the pace of her nervous stroll slowed.
"But still you fear," the mercenary reasoned. "And you need information so that you might be ready for any consequence." Jarlaxle couldn't help a small, ironic chuckle. He and Triel had been enemies for a long time, neither trusting the otherЧand with good reason! Now she needed him. She was a priestess in a secluded school, away from much of the city's whispered rumors. Normally her prayers to the Spider Queen would have provided her all the information she needed, but now, if Lloth sanctioned Matron Baenre's actions (and that fact seemed obvious), Triel would be left, literally, in the dark. She needed a spy, and in Menzoberranzan, Jarlaxle and his spying network, Bregan Eyaerthe, had no equal.