"ED Greenwood - Band of Four 01 - The Kingless Land" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

ballad-hungry. .. or just to spare their ears."
The severe wine matron who'd begun ignoring the beckonings of the youngest Delcamper
appeared like a silent shadow to set down a generous platter of hot herbed woodwings tarts and a
decanter of decidedly finer vintage than Flaeros had yet tasted. He turned to look at her in surprise,
only to find a tapestry rippling back into place in her wakeтАФan instant too late for him to miss the
flashing smile she gave the old man over her shoulder. Who was he?
By then, the dry old voice was telling Flaeros that he was sitting in the Sighing Gargoyle. When
breezes blew just so through the sculpted stone ears and many-fanged mouth of the archmount
gargoyle out front, a sigh arose that was loud and lifelike.
Flaeros nodded and then stiffened at a warm touch against his hand. The old man had pushed
the heated platter his way. He looked up warily as the delicious smell of heartgaer and roast
woodwings rose around him.
"Eat," the old man said simply. "You have to give the wine something to work on, down below.
Maershee's tarts are as good as you'll taste in all Sirlptar."
Flaeros was suddenly so hungry that his mouth filled with juices. He bit into a tart like a starving
man and found it as good as it smelled.
Hot gravy was running off his chin, and the old man was grinning at him. The youngest
Delcamper suddenly found that he didn't care. He grinned back, and the old man promptly pressed
another tart into his hand.
Flaeros had come to the fabled Glittering City to be-hold the Moot of the master bards. Every two
years they gathered at Sirlptar to exchange news, decide which towns and baronies were to go
"under the ban" and hear no tales or harping for a time, and consider which bans should be lifted.
For a score of nights they bought and sold instruments, sang to crowds who paid far too much to
cram shoulder-close into taverns, took on or exchanged students, confirmed a few new bards . ..
and in rare years, named a precious handful of harpists to the maroon mantle of Mastery.
Flaeros Delcamper was years away from such a wondrous fate, and he knew it. Yet he was giddy
with the sheer joy of his venture, sitting in a tavern in fabled Sirlptar with wonders on all sides.
Small, but more worldly than the best tavern in Ragalar, filled with folk from far sailings . . . folk
more confident than the anx-ious coin-pinching merchants of Ragalar the Stern. Aye, he was alone
and far from home, in a city of ready swords and, the tales ran, expert thieves . . . but was he not
near invincible, with the Vodal on his finger?
He looked down at itтАФa twisted and battered nail spotted with black tar, roughly banged into a
finger ring long ago. It looked as worthless as the seaman's bauble it had been before the best
mages the Delcampers of old could hire laid a score of enchantments on it and made it. .. the Vodal.
He glanced away quickly, afraid he'd drawn attention to it. It had done the Delcampers much
service and was worth (he'd been told, sharply) ten younger sons of the blood, and more. He
casually closed his hand over it, feeling its familiar tingle. The Vodal could do many things, but
Flaeros had been properly shown only one of its powers: when he stared at a person or a thing and
set his will just so, he could see through all magical guises and gaze on the truth. Not that he
expected to encounter many spell-cloaked mages... but why else waste a truly powerful heirloom on
a wayward son?
Suddenly impatient with kin and home, Flaeros heard himself asking, "So where exactly did
Aglirta lie, and how fare its remnants? I've heard tales of its fall, and I'm sure I'll hear them told
better and broader in the nights ahead, but merchants are fond of wild gossip, and I'd rather hear
some truth."
The lion-maned old man slowly lost his smile. "You honor me, lad, to think my words hold truth.
Know, then: all the mountain-girt vale of the Silverflow that comes down to the sea here, cutting
Sirlptar in two, was once proud Aglirta. You probably know the water better as the River Coiling.
Somewhere in the depths of green Loaurimm it rises. No baron ever ruled those silences, but from
where the woodcutters left off, down its wind-ings through a dozen baronies, was Aglirta. All