"David Farland - Runelords 5 - Sons of the Oak" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farland David)

a difficult time

SONS OF THE OAK

24 PROLOGUE SS
Asgaroth sent his consciousness across the stars, past nebu┬мlae of flaming
gases, past black holes that sucked in all mat┬мter, beyond galaxies dying and
gone cold, until he stood upon me broken remnants of the One True World before
his master, Shadoath.
She appeared to him as a goddess of shadow, a petite woman, sleek and elegant,
her supple limbs the very defini┬мtion of grace, raven hair cascading down bare
shoulders, her smooth skin as flawless as perfect virtue, her lips so red that
blood would envy it.
A shadow slanted across her face, hiding her features, but her eyes sparkled
like black diamonds.
She sat upon a marble dais in a garden, with trees twisting up like mick
serpents, their dark leaves hissing in a hint of wind, while among them sweet
doves sang their night songs.
In the hollows among the trees stood her guardians, those who worshipped her,
those whose love enslaved them. Once, in a previous life, Asgaroth had grown a
cancer on his shoul┬мder. For weeks a fevered hump had amassed, swelling so
quickly mat he could almost watch it. He knew that it would kill him in time,
and had watched it with morbid dispassion, until finally one day the skin
above it had grown so taut that it could no longer hold, and a rip appeared.
From out of it he saw the cancer: a grotesque fleshy head with a mouthful of
crooked teem, a single milky eye, and some ragged hair.
He had looked upon it with dispassion, laughing. "It is my true self revealed
at last!" he'd whispered.
But those who guarded Shadoath were more twisted still, mere humps of flesh
with crooked backs that surely could not attain higher thought. They seemed to
sprout heads and arms almost at random. He saw one that had three full hands
budding from a single arm, yet it held a silver scimitar in

one of those hands with expertness, its swollen fingers like red claws wrapped
painfully about the hilt.
Shadoath watched him approach with dispassion. They had spoken countless times
before, over the millions of mil┬мlions of years.
"Mistress," Asgaroth whispered. "The torch-bearer has chosen a new form."
Asgaroth showed her a vision of Queen Iome Sylvarresta, her womb swelling with
new life, a spirit shining like a fallen star beneath the flesh.
Shadoath showed no emotion. It had been ages since this torch-bearer had last
shown himself. He had been in hiding, for centuries, purifying himself,
firming his resolve.
"What does he desire?" Shadoath asked.
Asgaroth showed her a vision of the world of the Runelords, a world healing
after the fierce battles between the reavers and the Earth King, a world
healing more than any world should, a world remaking itself in the shape of
the One True World. "He has found it: a world that holds the memory of the
master rune. The restoration is at hand!"
This caused Shadoath to rise. Once, so long ago that even the memory of the