"James Lowder - The Harpers 05 - The Ring of Winter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowder James)

The Ring of Winter
Book 5 of The Harpers series
A Forgotten Realms novel
By James Lowder
A ProofPack release
Scanned by an anonymous scanner
Proofread and formatted by BW-SciFi
Ebook version 1.0
Release Date: October, 1 st, 2005
 Prologue
The creature had sixteen eyes, and all of them stared hungrily at the man in the center of the circular
room. The would-be victim's nameтАФthough the creature could not know thisтАФ was Artus Cimber, lauded
throughout Faerun as an explorer, historian, and seeker of adventure. At the moment, Artus was crouched
in front of a short stone pedestal, appraising with a practiced eye the silver statue that rested there.
With slow, careful movements, the explorer circled the pillar. He held an ancient dagger before him, the
gem in its hilt casting a soft radiance over the statue. The dagger had been given to him four years past by
the centaurs of Tribe Pastilar in Lethyr Forest, a reward for recovering the chieftain's sacred staff of
judgment. Magical light was just one of the weapon's strange properties. And at the moment, the bared
blade was the only thing preventing the creature from dropping down on Artus, for the hunter's mind was
agile enough to recognize such an unusual threat.
"There's no evidence the ring was ever in these ruins, Artus. Perhaps it would be best if we dusted
ourselves off and went our way."
Artus glanced up at the lone entrance to the chamber just as a white-haired head appeared around the
crumbling stone doorjamb. "Well," the older man asked mildly, his breath turning to steam in the frosty air,
"what do you say we head for camp?" His mouth was set in a vague smile, and his bushy white brows hung
like clouds over eyes the color of sapphires.
"Come have a look at this, Pontifax," Artus murmured, his attention instantly drawn back to the statue.
"It's Mulhorandi from the looks of it, and very, very old, too."
A frown of concern crossed Pontifax's face, and he stepped into the room. "Mulhorandi, you say? For
Mystra's sake, don't touch the thing until you've examined it under better lighting. You know what happened
to Grig of Armot when he bought that blasted magical model of a Mulhorandi pyramid at the magefair. Still
trapped inside, don't you know. Why, his own sonтАФalso named Grig, I believe . . ."
Without breaking off his narrative of the elder Grig's unhappy fate, the white-haired man lowered a sack
full of less spectacular artifacts recovered from the ruins, then hefted the stump of a torch. The wood burst
into flame, filling the circular chamber with light. On the ceiling, the creature tried to shrink back into the
shadows. Finding none, it froze, hungry yet frightened by the dagger Artus wielded.
"Pontifax," Artus whispered, "it's absolutely priceless. I've never seen its like." He stood transfixed by
the artifact, his gloved fingers held perilously close to its surface.
The glittering silver statue stood about two feet tall. The figure, despite the extra pair of arms extruding
from its sides, was human and clad in the sandals and loincloth still favored by the natives of Mulhorand. A
simple circlet rested upon its brow, as if to make up for the utterly bald pate. Around the statue's base, a
series of complicated picture-glyphs marched in a regulated line.
"Can you read what it says?" Pontifax asked, leaning close. "Maybe it'll tell you why a Mulhorandi statue
is sitting in the basement of a ruined keep here in Cormyr."
Artus shook his head. "The glyphs are older than any I've seen. I could make a guess, but . . ." He
sheathed his dagger in his boot and rubbed the stubble on his chin. "I think you were right about this being
magical, though. The silver isn't tarnished in the least."
At that instant, Pontifax's lower back decided to voice a painful complaint. He straightened with a groan,
just in time to glimpse a dark shape dropping quickly and silently from the ceiling high above. "Artus!" he
cried.