"Books - David Eddings - The Ellenium 1 - The Diamond Throne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

When at last the Troll-Dwarf appeared, Adian went up
to him in a dissembling guise and told him that he knew
where Aphrael might be found and that he would reveal
her location for a helmet full of fine yellow gold. Ghwerig
was deceived and straightaway led Adian to the hidden
mouth of his cavern and he took the hero's helm and
went into his treasure chamber and filled it to overflowing
with fine gold. Then he emerged again, sealing the
entrance to his cavern behind him. And he gave Adian
the gold, and Adian deceived him again, saying that
Aphrael might be found in the district of Horset on the
western coast of Thalesia. Ghwerig hastened to Horset to
seek out the Goddess. And once again Adian impereled
his soul and implored the Troll-Gods to break Ghwerig's
enchantments that he might gain entrance to the cavern.
The capricious Troll-Gods consented and the enchantments
were broken.
As rosy dawn touched the ice fields of the north into
flame, Adian emerged from Ghwerig's cavern with
Bhelliom in his grasp. He journeyed straightaway to his
capital at Emsat and there he fashioned a crown for
himself and surmounted it with Bhelliom.
The chagrin of Ghwerig knew no bounds when he
returned empty-handed to his cavern to find that not
only had he lost the keys to the power of Bhelliom, but
that the flower-gem itself was no longer in his possession.
Thereafter he usually lurked by night in the fields
and forests about the city of Emsat, seeking to reclaim his
treasure, but the descendants of Adian protected it
closely and prevented him from approaching it.
Now as it happened, Azash, an Elder God of Styricum,
had long yearned in his heart for possession of Bhelliom
and of the rings which unlocked its power and he sent
forth his hordes out of Zemoch to seize the gems by force
of arms. The kings of the west took up arms to join with
the Knights of the Church to face the armies of Otha of
Zemoch and of his dark Styric God, Azash. And King
Sarak of Thalesia took ship with some few of his vassals
and sailed south from Emsat, leaving behind the royal
command that his earls were to follow when the mobilization
of all Thalesia was complete. As it happened,
however, King Sarak never reached the great battlefield
on the plains of Lamorkand, but fell instead to a Zemoch
spear in an unrecorded skirmish near the shores of Lake
Venne in Pelosia. A faithful vassal, though mortally
wounded, took up his fallen lord's crown and struggled
his way to the marshy eastern shore of the lake. There,
hard-pressed and dying, he cast the Thalesian crown into
the murky, peat-clouded waters of the lake, even as
Ghwerig, who had followed his lost treasure, watched in