"[Forgotten Realms - The Year of Rogue Dragons, Book 1] - Byers, Richard Lee - The Rage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forgotten Realms)

"I can't reach inside Maestro Taegan's head and change the way his brain works. By the Nine Hells, I've accomplished every other task you gave me."
Firvimdol shrugged and said, "Routine chores. Not really enough to prove your commitment or usefulness."
Gorstag felt a pang of anxiety, drew a calming breath, and replied, "I have the feeling you're about to set me a test."
"Not meЧthe Wearer of Purple. She said that if you could make no headway with your mentor, I was to give you a different errand."
"Whatever the job is, if it will prove my loyalty, I welcome it. I'm tired of being the new man, mistrusted and kept in the dark."
"Good. You know Hezza, the pawnbroker on Lutemaker Street?"
"Vaguely."
In truth, he knew Hezza, and others like him, depressingly well. He'd often pawned one or another of his meager belongings to put bread on his table.
"We've learned he took possession of an emerald pendant just a few hours ago," said Firvimdol. "The stone's of the highest quality."
Gorstag saw where Firvimdol was going. The cult had been procuring jewels "of the highest quality" for some ten-days.
"You want me to steal it," Gorstag said.
"Yes, we do. It's rare luck that such a prize is sitting in Hezza's shop. The place isn't nearly as secure as it ought to be to protect such a treasure."
"It's surely locked, though, and I'm no burglar."
"With a light and a crowbar, you'll do fine."
"What does the brotherhood need with all these gems anyway?"
"You'll find out at the proper time. Will you do it?"
The spy nodded and said, "Anything for the cause."
So it was that Gorstag made his way to a neighborhood displaying little sign of Lyrabar's general affluence, a district of crumbling brick tenements and rookeries like the one where he'd grown up, and where, to his shame, he still resided. Nearing the scene of his intended misdeed, he abandoned the customary swagger of a rake to skulk through the shadows. He had a certain practiced knack for it. Over the years, as legitimate ways of bettering himself had eluded him, he'd occasionally resorted to petty thieving to make ends meet. He suspected his employer somehow knew, and that was why he'd sought him out to be his agent.
Grateful to find it deserted, Gorstag crept down a narrow, twisting alleyway to the rear entrance of the pawnshop. He pulled his hood up to shadow his features, took another look around, then brought the hooked iron pry bar Firvimdol had provided out from under his cloak. He stuck the end between door and jamb then threw his weight against it.
The lock held for a moment then broke with a snap. To Gorstag, the noise seemed hellishly loud, and when he pushed the door open he half expected to hear Hezza rushing to investigate. But the dark space beyond the threshold was silent.
Gorstag slipped through the door, pushed it shut behind him, and removed Firvimdol's other gift from its black cloth bag. Strung on a leather thong, it was a wooden bead enchanted to shed a pale luminescence, and Gorstag couldn't help thinking that by itself, it was a niggardly sort of help ж for the cultists to provide, in view of the potent magic they I claimed to command. But apparently it was all an unproven I recruit could expect. j
The ghostly light revealed a large room cluttered with tools, furniture, flutes, porcelain dolls, display cases full of cameos, bracelets, and tortoiseshell combs, and countless other dusty objects. The pawnshop took up the entire first floor of the house. Hezza lived upstairs.
Holding the bead aloft like a lantern, Gorstag cast about. Where would Hezza stow a valuable emerald? Surely he wouldn't leave it sitting out with the junk. He'd stash it somewhere safer.
Gorstag found a strongbox under the counter. It was harder to pry open than the door had been, because his crowbar was too big for the job. Finally he managed to open it, to discover only an assortment of coins.
At that, it was coin that could feed and clothe him and pay his rent, and for a second he considering pocketing it. But he was better than that, or at least he aspired to be, and he left the gold and silver where it lay.
Where was the emerald? It occurred him to that Hezza might have taken such a valuable item upstairs with him, but he flinched at the prospect of looking for it in such close proximity to its keeper. He'd conduct a thorough search of the shop first.
He found the second strongbox built into the wall behind a grubby hanging. The steel hatch yielded grudgingly, bending a fraction of an inch at a time. Every metallic rasp and groan jangled his nerves and made him glance over his shoulder. But still Hezza failed to appear, and finally Gorstag widened the gap enough to work his hand inside. He groped about, found something that felt like a pendant, and drew it forth. Even in the dim illumination, the emerald seemed brilliant. Flawless.
It was far more enticing than the coins had been, but that temptation, too, he would resist. He'd keep faith with his employer, hand the gem over to Firvimdol, and better himself in an honorable way.
He turned, and Hezza was there. Barrel-chested, tufts of his curly brown hair sticking up every which way, the pawnbroker was still in his nightshirt, but had taken the time to equip himself with a falchion. He used it to chop at Gorstag's head.
Gorstag avoided the stroke by leaping backward. Irrationally, perhaps, in that moment, he was less worried about the threat of the curved sword than that Hezza would recognize him. But the pawnbroker didn't seem to. Evidently Gorstag's hood provided sufficient disguise in the feeble light.
He tossed the bead away and dodged around a display case, interposing it between Hezza and himself. That gave him time to draw his rapier, though the gods knew he didn't ж want to use it. He couldn't use it as it was meant to be used, not against a tradesman who was only trying to protect what was rightfully his.
"Please stop," he said. "You don't understand." ж
"No?" Hezza grunted as he kept maneuvering, trying to work in close enough for another attack.
Gorstag wasn't supposed to babble his employer's private business, but it would be better than killing an innocent man, wouldn't it?
"I serve the Harpers." He didn't actually know for a fact that his contact was a member of that altruistic secret society, but he suspected it. "They set me the task of infiltrating a nest of traitors to the queen. I have to borrow the emerald to do that. I swear, you'll get it back."
"Oh," said Hezza, "that's fine, then. Would you like me to wrap it up for you? Or give it a polish?"
He faked a shift to the right, dodged left instead, and there was nothing between him and Gorstag. He rushed in cutting and slashing.
Hezza was no expert swordsman like Maestro Taegan, but he was competent. Gorstag had to parry and retreat frantically to preserve himself from harm. He saw openings for ripostes and counterattacks, but he couldn't bring himself to exploit them.
He had to do something. Hezza was rapidly taking his measure. Figuring out how to penetrate his defense. The pawnbroker's cuts only fell short by a finger breadth, or else Gorstag only managed to block them at the last possible moment. If he didn't do something soon, Hezza would surely cut him down.
He waited for Hezza to lift the falchion for a head cut, then sprang forward. It was a risky to plunge straight into an opponent's attack, but he proved quick enough to leap safely inside the arc of the stroke. He bashed his surprised opponent in the jaw with the rapier's bell guard, then hammered his forehead with the pommel. The pawnbroker fell, unconscious.
"I'm sorry," Gorstag panted, "but it was necessary." Maybe the Wearer of Purple, Firvimdol, and the other
madmen, Gorstag thought, will finally tell me about their grand design.


Pavel Shemov fanned out his cards to see what the dealer had wrought. When he found the Sun, the King and Queen of Staves, and the Knights of Staves, Coins, and Blades, it was a struggle to keep his tawny, handsome, brown-eyed face from breaking into a grin.
Ever since he'd sat down at the table, he'd drawn one dismal hand after another and watched his stakes dwindle until he could almost have wished he was a priest of Tymora, goddess of luck, instead of his own beloved Lathander. The cards he held, however, constituted an excellent hand headed, moreover, by the Morninglord's own emblem. It was inconceivable that he could lose.
The trick was to make the most of it. It wouldn't do to scare the other gamblers out. When the dour, shaggy-bearded ruffian on his right opened for ten gold pieces, Sembian nobles and Cormyrean lions mostly, the cleric made a show of pondering, then contented himself with a modest raise.
At which point, Will burst through the inn door, admitting a gust of frigid air in the process.
He spotted his comrade and shouted, "Pretty boy! I need you."
"I'm busy," Pavel replied.