"Flint, Kenneth C - Gods of Eire 02 - Champions of the Sidhe UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

"I do believe you. The force in you always brings new vitality to me. We will find a way."

Lugh felt relief at having bolstered Nuada. He only wished he really knew what way they would find.

"We will have to discuss plans for action with all the advisors," he suggested. "Gather them, but do it without letting anyone know what's happening. There's little point in bringing worry to the rest until we've some idea what to do."

"True enough," agreed Nuada. "I'll have them gather in my quarters tonight, after the others are asleep."

"That's settled then," Cilia announced with relief "Now maybe we'll have a bit of time for some rest and food."

"There's food and drink laid out in the main hall," Angus said. "The Druids are working there."

"Working?" asked Lugh.

"Old Findgoll's got them practicing their arts," Angus ex-plainted, laughing. "He says they've gotten tarnished, like an unused blade."

"Do you know where Aine might be?" Lugh asked, trying to sound quite casual.

24

CHAMPIONS OF THE SIDHE

Angus grinned more widely. "Ah, I wondered when you'd ask. She's in the sunroom with Taillta, working on some fool project. They're not in a good humor over it,"

"My idea, I'm afraid," Gilla admitted lightly. "I put them to it before we left."

"Then you're the one they've been talking of torturing in so many interesting ways," Angus said. "Best be armed when you see them."

"No one can be angry with playful old Gilla the Clown for long," he replied in a breezy tone. "Come, friends. Let's find the victuals. My cloak's purely deflated."

With that he set off jauntily, humming a light air.

"There goes a lunatic for certain," said Angus, staring after him.

"There's no man, lunatic or not, I'd more want at my back," Lugh told him, and started off with the Dagda and Morrigan after him.

They crossed the yard to the main hall of the fortress. This immense, circular structure of wattled timber squatted in the center of the enclosure, the physical and spiritual heart of Tara's life.

As they passed from the sunlight of the yard, the hall's interior was like a dim cavern. But before their eyes could adjust to the darkness, a sudden flare of yellow light threw the vast room into sharp clarity and revealed to them a nightmare scene.

In the center of the hall, a monstrous form rose from the stone circle of the fire pit.

The body was like that of an enormous maggot that had crawled up from the earth's blackest bowels, flattened and marked with rings that divided the soft flesh into segments. It shone with a thick layer of mucous that oozed from it as it pushed upward past the stones circling the pit. At its upper end was a boneless head with staring, bulbous eyes fixed to slender stalks that seemed to grow from the pliant body. Below the eyes was a round, protruding mouth, like that of a leech, constantly pulsing, sucking, ready to fix upon some victim, drooling a venomous liquid that sizzled and steamed as it splattered to the floor.

It reared upward, drawing its huge form high and lifting the head toward the point of the peaked roof nearly thirty feet above. The eyestalks stretched out, bringing the eyes forward, and arched downward, directing the lidless stare at a group of

BRES RETURNS

25