"David Eddings - The Elenium 3 - The Saphire Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

The victory of the Elenes was complete, but not without
dreadful cost. Fully half of the Militant Knights lay slain
upon the battlefield, and the armies of the Elene Kings
numbered their dead by the scores of thousands. The
victory was theirs, but they were too exhausted and too
few to pursue the fleeing Zemochs past the border.
The bloated Otha, his withered limbs no longer even
able to bear his weight, was borne on a litter through
the labyrinth at Zemoch to the temple, there to face the
wrath of Azash. He grovelled before the idol of his God,
blubbering and begging for mercy.
And at long last Azash spoke. 'One last time, Otha)'
the God said in a horribly quiet voice. 'Once only will I
relent. I will possess Bhelliom, and thou wilt obtain it for
me and deliver it up to me here, for if thou dost not do
this thing, my generosity unto thee shall vanish. If gifts do
not encourage thee to bend to my will, perhaps torment
will. Go Otha. Find Bhelliom for me and return with it
here that I may be unchained and my maleness restored.
Shouldst thou fail me, surely wilt thou die, and thy dying
shall consume a million, million years.

Otha fled, and thus, even in the ruins and tatters of his
defeat was born his last assault upon the Elene kingdoms
of the west, an assault which was to bring the world to the
brink of universal disaster.

PART ONE

The Basilica

*Chapter 1

The waterfall dropped endlessly into the chasm that had
claimed Ghwerig, and the echo of its plunge filled the
cavern with a deep-toned sound like the after-shimmer of
some great bell. Sparhawk knelt at the edge of the abyss
with the Bhelliom held tightly in his fist. Thought had been
erased, and he could only kneel at the brink of the chasm,
his eyes dazzled by the light of the sun-touched column of
water falling into the depths from the surface above and
his ears full of its sound.
The cave smelled damp. The mist-like spray from
the waterfall bedewed the rocks, and the wet stones
shimmered in the shifting light of the torrent to mingle
with the last fading glimmerings of Aphrael's incandescent
ascension.

Sparhawk slowly lowered his eyes to look at the jewel
he held in his fist. Though it appeared delicate, even