"Douglas Niles - Druidhome 2 - The Coral Kingdom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

The halfling nodded, suppressing a shudder as he looked into the darkness beyond the camp.
"They told us that the fabulous beauty of the place would surely drive us humans mad, and perhaps it
would have, judging by the sounds we heard. Even thoseтАФthe trilling of waterfalls, the mingling of birdsong
and breezeтАФwould have captivated us all. . . ."
"Except for the bard!" finished Tavish with a smile.
"Indeed. The harpist Keren banged against his harp and made the most awful sounds you could imagine.
For a full day, he kept it up while the sisters led us along their trails. Those jarring notes, I'm sure, were all
that kept us alive. Finally we came out on a broad and rounded ridge. Synnoria was behind us. ..."
Robyn's face grew sad as she remembered the darker moments in the path of her life since then.
Suddenly she missed Tristan terribly, and it was all she could do to hold back her tears.
"So you see, there's a lot of magic to contend with," warned Pawldo, wiggling a finger at Alicia. "I
wouldn't be surprised if half of us are turned into bugs before this is over!" His face was jocular, but his
tone indicated more than a little apprehension on this point.
Alicia slumped backward but didn't concede defeat. "You can argue reality all you want," she said, "but
I've never doubted, from the moment we started out, that we'd find our way into that valley somehow!"
"Hold that faith, child," said Tavish with a soft laugh. "It may be all we need."

* * * * *
 "Arise, Ityak-Ortheel, and answer your master's summons!"
The command of Malar rang through the ether, past the vortices of the gods and downтАФfar, far
downтАФinto the Abyssal depths of the lower planes. Here the one known as Elf-Eater raised its
muck-streaked maw from the primordial sludge that was its home and, upon hearing the call, uttered a
rumbling belch of assent.
Talos observed the activities of his ally with cruel pleasure. The discovery of the platinum triangle on the
Moonshae Islands had infused Malar with vengeful hatred. The Beastlord would waste no time in setting
his pet creature against those insolent elvesтАФand this vengeance suited the Stormbringer's plans as well.
The image of Malar's muzzled skull, bristling with fangs and resting upon huge, many-taloned paws,
appeared before the Elf-Eater. Slowly, with gruesome majesty, Ityak-Ortheel rose from the sheltering
sludge until it crouched before the figure of its god. Only the illusionary presence of the deity allowed Malar
to loom over his pet, for Ityak-Ortheel was itself the size of a massive dragon.
But size was the thing's only resemblance to those comparatively noble serpents. The Elf-Eater had a
mouth but no teeth. Instead, the aperture was a moist, sucking hole in the side of the thing's domelike body.
The maw was capable of expanding to a gaping width or compressing into a long, probing snout, and it was
surrounded by many long tentacles, each equipped with multiple, weblike pods used to trap a victim and
drag it toward that obscene orifice.
And also unlike a dragon, Ityak-Ortheel had no tail nor wingsтАФand only three legs, each as broad as a
gnarled oak stump. Upon those limbs, however, it could lumber as fast as a galloping horse. It had no eyes
nor ears, but it could sense the presence of warm-blooded beings on all sides, and could easily distinguish
which were elves.
With the summons of Malar, all the Elf-Eater's dim intellect focused on the gnawing emptiness within
the great body. Quivering in eagerness, the elephantine shape awaited the further words of its god.
The words it wanted to hear were not forthcoming. Instead, Malar seized the spiritual essence of
Ityak-Ortheel and hauled it upward into the ether. Malar focused his attention on the target, and Talos used
his still-awesome power to enact a powerful spell.
Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater, shook its great body, exploding through a dark wall of stone to plant its
three feet firmly on grassy soil. No longer did it fester in the pits of sludge, it knew. Instead, it had come to
a place surrounded by a world of mortals. . . a place called Synnoria.
A place of elves.
 4
The Elf-Eater