"Ed Greenwood - Forgotten Realms - Elminster 2 - Elminster In Myth Drannor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

gems. One of the Red Blades strode forward until he loomed above Elminster.
"I wonder where a youngling gets such riches," he said with slow menace. "Have you any more
such baubles, to see you down the long, perilous road to the Rapids?"
Elminster smiled slowly, and put something into the warrior's hand.
The man looked down at it. A single coin glimmered in his palm. A large, olden coin of pure
platinum.
 Elminster took the scepter from its soft midair twirling, and waved his other hand in invitation at
the table of gems. Surgath scrambled for it.
The hawk-nosed youth watched him feverishly raking rubies together and leaned forward to
speak to the adventurer, in a soft whisper that carried to every corner of the taproom. "There's just one
thing to beware of, good sir-and that's coming to look for more."
"Oh?" the man asked, as menacingly as before.
Elminster pointed at the coin-and suddenly it stirred, rising as a hissing serpent in the man's hand.
With a curse the man hurled it away. It struck a wall with a metallic ring, dropped, and rolled away, a
coin once more.
"They're cursed, ye see," Elminster said sweetly. "All of them. Stolen from a tomb, they were,
and that awakened it. And without my magic to keep the curse under control..."
"Wait a bit," Surgath said, face darkening. "How do I know these rubies're real, hey?"
"You don't," Elminster told him. "Yet they are, and will remain rubies in the morning. Every
morning after that, too. If you want the scepter back-I'll be in the room Rose has ready for me."
He gave them all a polite smile and went out, wondering how many folk, whether they wore
serpent rings or not, would try to slay the spell image that would be the only thing sleeping in El's bed
tonight, or turn the room inside out searching for a scepter that was not there. The turf-and-tile roof of the
Herald's Horn would do well enough for the repose of the last prince of Athalantar.
Of all the eyes in that taproom that wonderingly watched the young man from Athalantar leave,
one pair, in a far corner, harbored black, smoldering murder. They did not belong to the man who wore
the serpent ring.

*****

"A hundred rubies," Surgath said hoarsely, spilling a small red rain of glittering gems from one
hand to the other. "And all of them real." He glanced up at the reassuring glow of the wards, smiled, and
stirred his bowl full of rubies once more. It had cost him the same worth as two of these jewels to buy the
wardstone, years ago-but it was worth every last copper tonight.
Still smiling, he never saw the wardstone flash once, as a silent spell turned its fiery defenses on its
owner.
There was a muted roar, and then the prospector's skeleton toppled slowly sideways onto the
bed. Surgath Ilder would grin forever now.
A few rubies, shattered by the heat, tinkled to the floor in blackened fragments. The eyes that
watched them fall held a certain satisfaction-but still smoldered with murder yet to be done. Revenge
could sometimes reach from beyond the grave.
After a moment, the owner of those eyes smiled, shrugged, and wove the spell that would bring a
fistful of those rubies hence.
We must all die in the end-but why not die rich?

Two
Death And Gems

The passing of the Mage of Many Gems might have doomed the House of Alastrarra, had
it not been for the sacrifice of a passing human. Many elves of the realm soon wished the man in