"Ed Greenwood - Silverfall - Stories Of The Seven Sisters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

and act as mortals do, finding their own vision of the Weave, and serving me in their own ways.
Chosen are not easy to find. Chosen are so special that I have managed to keep no more
than a bare two handfuls of those my predecessor raised to their sta-tion. The greatest work of my
predecessorтАФthe Mystra who was not once a mortal who took the name "Mid-night"тАФwas the
birthing of Chosen she could not find, and so had to make.
I speak of the Seven Sisters, born under Mystra's hand, to be the sort of mortals she
needed, and that I need even more these days. Mortals are wondrous, com-plex things; my own
power is not yet risen enough that I dare attempt to make or bear Chosen as she did . . .
wherefore I look endlessly about Toril, seeking fitting mortals who have arisen on their own.
I watch over all who work with the Weave, or meddle in its workings. I watch most those
who fascinate me with their daring, their accomplishments, their charac-ters ... or their love. I
watch these Seven often, almost as much as the old rogue who kept my predecessor's power in the
time of her passing, and gave it so will-ingly to me. She lives on in him, and in me.
She lives on more splendidly still in those who could be termed her daughters: the seven
mortal women who share a sex, silver hair, beauty, and wits. They have outlived most mortals,
and still enter each day with gusto, a constant delight to me. My only disappoint-ment is that they
do not work together more often.
Yet once in a passing whileтАФin particular, when I nudge them ever so gently from behind
all the curtains of concealment I can spinтАФthey do ... and I love to watch them at work.
Watch them with me now.
Aye, my eyes shine. When I was a mortal, I wish I'd lived as these magnificent ladies of
mine do.
I am Mystra, and to you all I give this gift . . . the Seven Shining of my Chosen. Aye, I
weep; whatever you may think, mortal, it is a gift given with Love.
 Dove
No More in Armor for My Sake

No sword of war lay long idle in her hand.
Ardreth, High Harp of Berdusk
from the ballad A Dove At Dawn
composed circa the Year of the Lost Helm

Sometimes Mirt had his private suspicions that the magic of the ring didn't work at all.
He thought that right now, for instance, on an all-too-warm spring day in the Year of the Gauntlet
as he stumbled through the moist and uneven green dimness of a forest sane folk never dared enter. The
damp leaves were slippery underfoot, and he was getting too old for creeping about on uneven ground in
deep gloom. He fetched up against perhaps his hundredth tree this afternoon, ramming it solidly with his
shoulder, and growled in pain.
Well, at least it made a change from wheezing for breath. The fattest working merchant in all the
city of Waterdeep shook his head ruefully at the thought of lost strength and slimnessтАФgone thirty years,
and more, agoтАФand waved his arms in frantic circles like a startled chicken so as to find his balance.
When he won that battle he strode on, his old, worn boots flopping.
A serpent raised a fanged head in warning on the vast, moss-cloaked trunk of a fallen tree ahead,
and the Old Wolf gave it a growl worthy of his namesake. What good are enchanted rings that quell all
nonvocal sounds one makes, and allow one to slip through ward-spells unnoticed, if one still lumbers
about like a bull in a mud-wallow . . . and the ring-spells do nothing about the confounded heat?
Mirt wiped sweat out of his eyes with a swipe of his sleeve as he watched the snake glide away
in search of a more secluded spot to curl up in. He was wheezing again. Gods curse this heatтАФwasn't
deep forest shade supposed to be cool?
A rattlewings started up in alarm under his boots, whirring away through the gloom in a