"Ed Greenwood - Band of Four 04 - The Dragon's Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

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To Brian, who helped me to get it right

Esse Quam Videri


Yet folk who know Aglirta of old will know already what befell next.
For the people were unhappy.
The barons were no better than they had ever been
Sly tongues of evil were busy in the land
Fell magic had corrupted those who sought and wielded it
Without ever weakening their eager hands
This could be almost any year in Aglirta
So be thankful for the bards and heralds
Who look upon the Vale that is so fair
And yet so seemingly gods-cursed
For they at least help us keep our disasters straight.

From A Year-Scroll of Aglirta
By Jalrek Halanthan,
Scribe of Sirlptar


Prologue


A hard, sudden rain was lashing the rooftops of Sirlptar as the came down,
driven ashore by a home-harbor wind. The storm rattle on the slates and tiles
of hundreds of roofs quite drowned out the customary chimney-sighs for which
the Sighing Gargoyle was named. Flaeros Delcamper could barely hear his own
harp notes, butтАФnewly esteemed bard to the court of Flowfoam or notтАФthis was
his first paying engagement in the City of River and Sea, and he sang on with
determination.
Yet even he knew, as he lifted his voice in the refrain of his newest ballad
about the Lady of Jewels and the Fall of the Serpent, that he might just as
well have saved his breath. Not a man-jack was listening.
Every patron of the Gargoyle was bent forward over the table that held his
tankard, listeningтАФor talkingтАФintently. The mutter of voices held no note of
happiness.
"And so 'tis another year gone, and how's Aglirta the better for it?"
"Aye, harvests thinner than ever, half the good men in the land dead and
rotting when they should be plowing or scything-and now we have a boy for a
king!"
"Huh. No joy there, yet he can hardly be worse than what we've had, these
twenty summers nowтАФwizards and barons, wizards and barons: villains, all!"
"Aye, that's so. Wizards have always been bad and dangerousтАФ'tis in the
breed, by the Three!"