"02 - Faery Lands Forlorn 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

"Queen Rasha used occult power on the legionaries!" Thinal sucked his teeth
loudly. "So she did! You think that'll rouse the wardens? Treading on East's
turf?"
Certainly that seemed possible to Rap, but almost any schoolboy in Hub would
understand occult politics better than he did. And would the Four care enough
about Inos even to rescue her, let alone put her on her throne? The
wardens-three warlocks and one witch-were the occult guardians of all Pandemia.
What sort of people were they? What were their real motives?
At that moment, the sun hooked a fiery finger over the horizon. The sky had
unobtrusively turned itself blue.
"Go to Krasnegar! " Little Chicken growled. "Find woman back there." His
khaki-hued skin was slick with sweat already. "You'd like a good roll in the
snow, wouldn't you?"
The goblin grunted. Rap went back to prying information out of the imp.
"How about the fairyfolk? Andor said he didn't meet any. He meant Sagorn, didn't
he?"
"Yeah. They're rare now." Thinal halted and peered all around, shielding his
eyes from the sun with a skinny hand. The first two fingers on it were of equal
length. He evidently found nothing and began to walk again. "And dangerous, too.
Headhunters, it's said." He stopped, frowning. "Lots of troops in Milfior . . ."
"What's wrong?" Rap asked. "Just ... something odd. . ."
"Faerie, you mean? What sort of odd?"
Thinal scratched his unkempt mop of hair vigorously. "I don't know. Why would
the Impire guard Faerie so closely just because it's dangerous to visit? Why
post troops to protect tourists from monsters and natives? There's no guards
around Dragon Reach."
Rap felt suspicious. "Odd? What sort of odd? Whose idea is that? Sagorn's? Andor
never mentioned that. "
Thinal's feral features were suddenly completely blank. "Nothing. Just a city
boy jumpy in the jungle."
"Out with it!"
"Nothing, Rap."
"I thought we were partners? We shook hands."
"Yeah. Sorry, Rap! But it's really nothing. I just get sneaky instincts when I
see something being guarded." He smiled shamedly. "I'm a thief, see?"
"So?"
Thinal laughed uneasily. "I getta sorta itch when I'm near something worth
lifting. I nearly went batty when Andor called me to Kinvale. He needed me to
thieve a special brooch, but I wanted to loot buckets, and-"
"What," Rap demanded, "is worth stealing here?"
The lump in the thief's scrawny throat jumped. "Nothing I can see! Maybe I'm
just going weird. Scary!"
He didn't look scared, though-he looked excited. Had he sensed that Rap's word
of power was available in a way it had not been earlier? Rap could think of
nothing else around that was worth any more than one stone dagger. He shrugged
and kept walking.
"Thirsty!" Little Chicken complained, glaring sideways at Rap as if it were his
fault.
"Coconuts?" Apparently Thinal understood some of his dialect, but of course
Darad had spent time among the goblins. "You can get milk out of green coconuts.