"Dragonlance - Deathgate Cycle 02 - Elven Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deathgate Cycle)

Paithan sat quietly for several moments, fanning himself and wondering if he had the energy to call for the servant to bring him a fresh glass of vindrech-one that didn't have plaster in it. But it was against the young elf's nature to be silent for long.

"Speaking of Thea, where is she?" he asked, peering about as if he expected to see her emerge from under one of the antimacassars.

"In bed, of course. It's not winetime yet," returned his sister, referring to that period late in the cycle2 known as "storm" when all elves cease their work and relax over a glass of spiced wine.

Paithan rocked. He was getting bored. Lord Durndrun was having a group over for sailing on his treepond and a picnic supper after, and' if Paithan was planning to attend it was high time he set about getting dressed and on his way. Although not of noble birth, the young elf was rich enough, handsome enough, and charming enough to make his way into the society of the gently bred. He lacked the education of the nobility but was smart enough to admit it and not try to pretend he was anything other than what he was-the son of a middle-class businessman. The fact that his middle-class businessman father happened to be

2Elven society in Equilan regulates time as follows: one hundred minutes to an hour, twenty-one hours in a cycle, fifty cycles to a season, and five seasons to a year. Time measurement varies from place to place on Pryan, according to the local weather conditions. Unlike the planet Arianus, where there is day and night, the sun never sets on Pryan.

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(he wealthiest man in all of Equilan, wealthier even (so it was rumored) than the queen herself, more than made up for Paithan's occasional lapses into vulgarity.

The young elf was a good-hearted companion who spent his money freely and, as one of the lords said, "He is an interesting devil-can tell the wildest tales ..."

Paithan's education came from the world, not from books. Knee his mother's death, some eight years previous, and his father's subsequent descent into madness and ill-health, Paithan and his elder sister had taken over the family business. Calandra stayed at home and handled the monetary side of the prosperous weapons company. Although the elves hadn't gone to war in more than a hundred years, the humans were still fond of the practice and even fonder of the magical elven weapons created to wage it. It was Paithan's job to go out into the world, negotiate the deals, make certain that shipments were delivered, and keep the customers happy.

Consequently, he had traveled over all the lands of Thillia and had once ventured as far as the realm of the SeaKings to the norinth. Noble elves, on the other hand, rarely left their estates high in the treetops. Many had never been to the lower parts of Equilan, their own queendom. Paithan was, therefore, looked upon as a marvelous oddity and was courted as such.

Paithan knew the lords and ladies kept him around much as they kept their pet monkeys-to amuse them. He was not truly accepted into higher elven society. He and his family were invited to the royal palace once a year-the queen's concession to those who kept her coffers full-but that was all. None of which bothered Paithan in the least.

The knowledge that elves who weren't half as smart or one-fourth as rich looked down on the Quindiniars because they couldn't trace their family back to the Plague rankled like an arrow wound in Calandra's breast. She had no use for the "peerage" and made her disdain plain, at least to her younger brother. And she was extremely put out that Paithan didn't share her feelings.

Paithan, however,, found the noble elves nearly as amusing as they found him. He knew that if he proposed marriage to any one of ten dukes' daughters there would be gasps and wailings and tears at the thought of the "dear child" marrying a commoner-

.10* WEIS AND HICKMAN and the wedding would be held as fast as decently possible. Noble houses, after all, are expensive to maintain.

The young elf had no intention of marrying, at least not yet. He came of an exploring, wandering family-the very elven explorers who had discovered omite. He had been home for nearly a full season now and it was time he was on his way again, which was one reason he was sitting here with his sister when he should be out rowing around some charming young woman in a scull. But Calandra, absorbed in her calculations, appeared to have forgotten his very existence. Paithan decided suddenly that if he heard one more bead click he would go "potty"-a slang expression of "his crowd" that would have set Calandra's teeth on edge,

Paithan had some news for his sister that he'd been saving for just such an occasion. It would cause an explosion akin to the one that had rocked the house previously, but it might shake Calandra loose and then he could escape.

"What do you think of Father's sending for that human priest?" he asked.

For the first time since he entered the room, his sister actually stopped her calculations, lifted her head, and looked at him. "What?"

"Father's sending for the human priest. I thought you knew." Paithan blinked rapidly, to appear innocent.

Calandra's dark eyes glinted. The thin lips pursed. Wiping the pen with careful deliberation on an ink-stained cloth used expressly for this purpose, she laid it down carefully in its proper place on the top of the ledger and turned to give her hill attention to her brother.

Calandra had never been pretty. All the beauty in the family, it was said, had been saved up and given to her younger sister. Cal was thin to the point of boniness. (Paithan, when a child, had once been spanked for asking if his sister's nose had been caught in a winepress.) Now, in her fading youth, it appeared as if her entire face had been caught and pinched. She wore her hair pulled back in a tight knot at the top of her head, held in place by three lethal-looking, sharp-pointed combs. Her skin was dead white, because she rarely went out of doors and then carried a parasol to protect her from the sun. Her severe dresses were made after the same pattern-buttoned to her chin, her

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skirts trailing the floor. Calandra had never minded that she wasn't pretty. Beauty was given a woman so that she could trap a man, and Cal had never wanted a man.

"What are men, after all," Calandra was fond of saying, "but creatures who spend your money and interfere in your life?"