"R A Salvatore - Icewind Dale Trilogy 1 - Crystal Shard, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Salvatore R. A)

chilled air of Reghed Glacier. Even on the few days that the wind shifted
there was little relief, for Ten-Towns was bordered on-the north and west
by miles of empty tundra and then more ice, the Sea of Moving Ice. Only
southern breezes promised any relief, and any wind that tried to reach this
desolate area from that direction was usually blocked by the high peaks of
the Spine of the World.
Regis managed to keep his eyes open for a while, peering up through the
fuzzy limbs of the fur trees at the puffy white clouds as they sailed
across the sky on the mild breezes. The sun rained down golden warmth, and
the halfling was tempted now and then to take off his waistcoat. Whenever a
cloud blocked out the warming rays, though, Regis was reminded that it was
September on the tundra. In a month there would be snow. In two, the roads
west and south to Luskan, the nearest city to Ten-Towns, would be
impassable to any but the sturdy or the stupid.
Regis looked across the long bay that rolled in around the side of his
little fishing hole. The rest of Ten-Towns was taking advantage of the
weather, too; the fishing boats were out in force, scrambling and weaving
around each other to find their special "hitting spots." No matter how many
times he witnessed it, the greed of humans always amazed Regis. Back in the
southern land of Calimshan, the halfling had been climbing a fast ladder to
Associate Guildmaster in one of the most prominent thieves' guilds in the
port city of Calimport. But, as he saw it, human greed had cut short his
career. His guildmaster, the Pasha Pook, possessed a wonderful collection
of rubies - a dozen, at least - whose facets were so ingeniously cut that
they seemed to cast an almost hypnotic spell on anyone who viewed them.
Regis had marveled at the scintillating stones whenever Pook put them out
on display, and, after all, he'd only taken one. To this day, the halfling
couldn't figure out why the Pasha, who had no less than eleven others, was
still so angry with him.
"Alas for the greed of humans," Regis would say whenever the Pasha's men
showed up in another town that the halfling had made his home, forcing him
to extend his exile to an even more remote land. But he hadn't needed that
phrase for a year-and-a-half now, not since he had arrived in Ten-Towns.
Pook's arms were long, but this frontier settlement, in the middle of the
most inhospitable and untamed land imaginable, was a longer way still, and
Regis was quite content in the security of his new sanctuary. There was
wealth here, and for those nimble and talented enough to be a scrimshander,
someone who could transform the ivorylike bone of a knucklehead trout into
an artistic carving, a comfortable living could be made with a minimum
amount of work.
And with Ten-Towns' scrimshaw fast becoming the rave of the south, the
halfling meant to shake off his customary lethargy and turn his new-found
trade into a booming business.
Someday.

* * * * *

Drizzt Do'Urden trotted along silently; his soft, low-cut boots barely
stirring the dust. He kept the cowl of his brown
cloak pulled low over the flowing waves of his stark white hair and