"Julian May - The Pliocene Exiles 04 - The Adversary" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

that he could lick the monster if he were allowed to fight in a
human way. This was finally permitted. Aiken conquered Pallol
and the Tanu were declared overall winners of the Grand
Combat.

Heartbroken and bitter over their narrow loss, most of the
Firvulag left the White Silver Plain. Only their royalty remained
for the award ceremony and its intriguing anticlimax, a duel
between Aiken and Nodonn for the battlemastership (and ultim-
ately the kingship) of the Tanu. Virtually the entire flower and
chivalry of the Tanu were gathered as witnesses. Brede herself
was there to see Mayvar Kingmaker bestow upon Aiken his
Tanu name: He was called Lugonn, after the Shining Hero who
had fallen at the Ship's Grave a thousand years before, and he
was invested with the sacred Spear, now recharged and ready
for use again. Nodonn took up a similar weapon, the Sword,
which had once belonged to a Firvulag hero.

The two rivals squared off and began their duel just as the
cataclysmic flood from the encroaching Atlantic swept over the
White Silver Plain.

The mind-cries of the thousands of drowning people roused
Elizabeth, and she and her three human companions looked out
upon devastated Muriah and a submerged White Silver Plain.
Not all of the combatants and spectators of the last Grand
Combat died, however. Most of the Firvulag, already en route
home in their boats, survived. Some Tanu were cast ashore by
the floodwave or managed to use their metapsychic powers to
save themselves. Humans and hybrids in fair numbers swam to
safety. Wounded Tanu knights who had retired to Redactor

House, together with many members of that guild who attended
them, were secure from the floodwaters. Aluteyn Craftsmaster
and a rabble of craven knights floated to safety aboard the vessel
in which they were to have been incinerated. Aiken Drum rode
the flood inside a ceremonial cauldron and later rescued Mercy.
But more than half of the glorious Tanu, who were especially
vulnerable to immersion, perished. Profoundly shocked and torn
from her self-centred despair, Elizabeth finally undertook the
guardian role that the dead Brede bequeathed to her, and coord-
inated the evacuation of Muriah with the help of Chief Burke,
Basil, Sister Amerie, and the powerful redactors Dionket and
Creyn.

The Postdiluvium saw an entirely new balance of power take
form in the Many-Coloured Land. Sharn and Ayfa became co-
monarchs of the Firvulag and inaugurated unprecedented
reforms, including the domestication of animals, the utilization
of contraband Milieu weapons, and experiments in metacon-