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

their number they selected the nimble Goddess Aphrael
for the task. Then Aphrael journeyed to the north, and,
by reason of her slight form, she was able to wriggle her
way through a crevice so small that Ghwerig had
neglected to seal it. Once she was within the cavern,
Aphrael lifted her voice in song. So sweetly she sang that
Ghwerig was all bemused by her melody, and he felt no
alarm at her presence. So it was that Aphrael lulled him.
When, with dreamy smile, the Troll-Dwarf closed his
eyes, she tugged the ring from off his right hand and
replaced it with a ring set with a common diamond.
Ghwerig started up when he felt the tug, but when he
looked at his hand, a ring still encircled his finger, and he
sat him down again and took his ease, delighting in the
song of the Goddess. When once again, in sweet reverie,
his eyes dropped shut, the nimble Aphrael tugged the
ring from off his left hand, replacing it with yet another
ring mounted with yet another diamond. Again Ghwerig
started to his feet and looked with alarm at his left hand,
but he was reassured by the presence there of a ring
which looked for all the world like one of the pair which
he had fashioned from the shards of the flower-gem.
Aphrael continued to sing for him until at last he lapsed
into deep slumber. Then the Goddess stole away on
silent feet, bearing with her' the rings which were the
keys to the power of Bhelliom.
Now, upon a later day, Ghwerig lifted Bhelliom from
the crystal case wherein it lay that he might perform a
task by its power, but Bhelliom would not yield to him,


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for he no longer possessed the rings which were the keys
to its power. The rage of Ghwerig was beyond measure,
and he went up and down in the land seeking the
Goddess Aphrael that he might wrest his rings from her,
but he found her not, though for centuries he searched.
Thus it was for as long as Styricum held sway over the
mountains and plains of Eosia. But there came a time
when , the Elenes rode out of the east and intruded
themselves into this place. After centuries of random
wandering to and fro in the land, some of their number
came at last into far northern Thalesia and dispossessed
the Styrics and their Gods. And when the Elenes heard of
Ghwerig and his Bhelliom, they sought the entrances to
the Troll-Dwarf's cavern throughout the hills and valleys
of Thalesia, all hot with their lust to find and own the
fabled gem by reason of its incalculable worth, for they