"Raymond E. Feist - Conclave of Shadows 3 - Exile's Return" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

down before the other. Slowly he halved the distance, then halved it again.
His mind continued to wander as he relived events from his childhood, then the
downfall of his reign. A young woman whose name he could not recall appeared
before him, walking slowly for a minute, then vanished. Who was she? Then he
remembered. The daughter of a merchant, a girl he had found fair but whom his father
had forbidden him to see. 'You will wed for reasons of state,' he had been told. 'Take
her to your bed if you must, but leave aside foolish thoughts of love.'
The girl had wed someone else.
He wished he could remember her name.
He stumbled along, several times falling to his knees, only to rise once more on
will alone. Minutes, hours, days passed, he had no way of knowing which. His mind
was turning in on itself as he felt his life begin to wane.
He blinked, aware that the day was fading and he was now in a small gully,
heading downwards.
Then he heard it.
A birdcall. Slightly more than the peep of a sparrow, but a birdcall.
Kaspar forced himself out of his lethargy and blinked. He tried to clear his
swimming vision, and then he heard the call again. Cocking his head, he listened, and
then a third call came.
He staggered towards the sound, mindless of the treacherous footing. He fell, but
caught himself on the walls of the deepening gully.
Tough grass appeared beneath his feet and his mind seized on this one fact: if
there was grass, there must be water below. He looked around and could see no sign
of it, but he could see a stand of trees ahead. He pushed himself forward until he had
no strength left, and fell to his knees and then onto his face.
He lay panting, face down on the grass; and he could feel the moisture of the
blades against his face. Weakly, he dug at the grass and his fingers clawed up the
loose earth. Below it he felt dampness. With his last shred of will he pulled himself to
his knees and drew his sword. The odd thought came to him that should his old
swordmaster see him use a blade this way he would be up for a beating, but he
ignored the whimsical thought and plunged the blade into the soil. He dug. He used
the blade as a gardener would a spade and he dug.
He ripped and pulled with the last of his strength and forced a hole into the
ground with near-hysterical purpose, tearing the dirt aside as rapidly as a badger
digging a burrow. Then he smelled it. The damp smell was followed by a hint of
gleaming moisture on the blade.
He plunged his hand into the hole and felt mud. He tossed aside the sword and
dug with bare hands, and then plunged his fingers into water. It was muddy and tasted
of clay, but he could lie on his stomach and pull up a meager handful at a time. He
filled his cupped hand, raised it to parched lips and drank. At some point he rubbed
some water on his neck and face, but over and over he raised his cupped hand to
drink. He had no idea how many times he did this but eventually he collapsed, his
head striking the ground as his eyes rolled up into his head and consciousness fled.
The bird scratched at the seeds, as if sensing danger nearby. Silently, Kaspar
watched from on his stomach behind a depression a few feet away, masked by a line
of thorny brush, as the birdтАФsome sort of sage fowl he didn't recognizeтАФpecked at
the seed, then picked it up in its beak and gobbled it down. Kaspar had recovered
from his ordeal enough to pull himself into the shade that morning, leaving it only to
drink what he could dredge up from his impromptu well. The water came harder each
time, and he knew this little reservoir would soon be exhausted. He had decided near