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

question had sacrificed everything instead. Others point out that in more than one sense-he did.

Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights:
An Informal But True History of Cormanthor
published in The Year of the Harp
 As he went on through the endless wood, the land began to rise again, sprouting crags and huge
mossy overhangs of rock amid the ever-present trees. There was no trail to follow, but now that
Elminster was past the line of mountains that marked the eastern boundary of the human realm of
Cormyr, wherever south and east the trees rose tallest must be the right direction to head for
Cormanthor. The hawk-nosed youth with the saddlebag on his shoulder walked steadily toward that
unseen destination, knowing he must be getting close by now. The trees were older and larger, hung with
vines and mosses. He'd long since left all traces of woodsmen's axes behind.
He'd been walking for days-months-but in a way he was glad brigand arrows had deprived him
of his mount. Even in the lands claimed by the men of Cormyr, now behind him, the hills had been so
trackless and heavily wooded that he'd have had to let his horse go, thus willfully breaking Mystra's
directive.
Long before the terrain would've forced that disobedience on him, he'd have been coinless from
buying hay for the beast to eat, and weary-armed from hacking at tree-limbs to cut a way large enough
for the horse to squeeze onwards-presuming, of course, that the horse would've been willing to be ridden
into woods too thick to move about in. Woods roamed by things that snarled and howled at night, and
caused many unseen things to scream and wail as they were slain.
El hoped not to join their ranks overly soon.
He kept holding spells handy; they allowed him to freeze rabbits and sometimes deer where they
stood, and get close enough to them to use his knife. He was getting tired of the bloody, messy
butcherings that followed, the constant rustlings and calls that meant he was himself being watched, the
loneliness, and of feeling lost. Sometimes he felt more like a badly aimed arrow rushing blindly off to
nowhere, rather than a powerful, anointed Chosen of Mystra. Occasionally he hit something, but all too
often-though things seemed easy and straightforward enough-he plunged right into one blunder after
another. Hmm. No wonder Chosen were rare beasts.
No doubt there were rarer beasts lurking somewhere in all these trees right now, hunting him.
Why couldn't Mystra have given him a spell that would whisk him right to the streets of the elven city?
The Moonsea lay somewhere ahead and to his left, ending these trees that were elven territory-and if his
memory of overheard merchant chatter and glimpses of maps in Hastarl served him rightly, it was linked
by a river to an arm of the vast and sprawling Sea of Fallen Stars, which formed the eastern boundary of
the elven realm he sought. The mountains behind him were the western edge of Cormanthor-so if he kept
walking, and turned right whenever he found a river, he'd stay in elven lands. Whether or not he'd ever
find the fabled city at its heart was another matter. El sighed; there'd been no glows of torchlight or the
like at night to mark a distant city-and he'd not seen an elf since leaving Athalantar, let alone found one
since passing the line of mountains. Something as simple as a fall over a tree root out here could kill him,
with no one but the wolves and buzzards to know about it. If Mystra attached such importance to his
getting himself to the city, couldn't she guide him somehow? Winter could find him still wandering-or long
dead, his bones cracked and forgotten by some owlbear or peryton or skulking giant spider!
Elminster sighed and walked on. His feet were beginning to ache so much-a deep bone-ache,
that made him feel sick-that the pain overwhelmed the ever-present sting of broken blisters and raw skin.
His boots weren't in good shape now, either. In tales heroes just got to wherever the excitement was
without delay or hardship-and if he was a Chosen of Mystra, surely he qualified as a hero!
Why couldn't all of this be easier? He sighed again. As the wood went on around him, footfall
after weary footfall, mushroom-cloaked roots rose out of the earth everywhere, like contorted walls, and
full sunlight became rare. Deer were a common sight now, lifting their heads to watch him warily from