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

kingdom of Corwell, yet the Llewyrr had existed without human intrusion for more than ten centuries.
Magical wards and rugged mountains surrounded Synnoria on all sides; indeed, many of the Ffolk believed
that the Llewyrr were creatures of history or legend.
Brigit was one of the few Llewyrr to have journeyed beyond the borders of Synnoria. Twenty years
earlier, she and a small company of her knights had aided the human king, Tristan Kendrick, in the
Darkwalker War. Now she would happily spend the rest of her days riding these valleys and woodlands.
A burst of light washed over her like a cool dawn, and her attention riveted to the Fey-Alamtine. The
glossy black wall slowly grew opaque, taking on a rosy hue and an appearance of great depth, as if she
looked through a foggy window at a scene many miles away. The shimmering stopped suddenly, replaced
by a fixed glow.
Brigit saw a male elf, clad in a dirty, torn cotton tunic, step through the wall, as if he emerged from the
heart of the mountain, though she knew that he must have come from far beyond. He blinked in the bright
daylight of Synnoria and then gasped when he saw Brigit. He was unarmed, but he clutched a triangle of
silvery metal in both of his hands.
"Get out of the way," Brigit suggested gently. "The gate will not remain open indefinitely."
Blinking in surprise, the male quickly nodded and took several steps forward. A female elf, equally dirty
and ragged, followed him, clutching a youngster by the hand. The elven child ran forward to clasp the leg of
the male who had been the first to emerge.
They came through the shimmering wall in single file, and the elven horsewoman got a good look at
them as they emerged into Synnoria: all of them ragged, unkempt, and dirty. Their blond hair was
disheveled, trailing back in the wind and plainly revealing the pointed ears of Brigit's elven kindred. She felt
no alarm now, only sympathy and a kind of general sadness at the course of advancing history.
The sister knight dismounted, leaving Talloth to wait patiently for her mistress. Brigit advanced slowly
toward the leader, whom she marked as a cleric by the golden oak leaf-symbol of Corellon, god of all the
elvesтАФembroidered on his sleeves.
The young priest stared at her in mute suspicionтАФor hope. Brigit held up a hand and advanced at a
walk. "Welcome to Synnoria," she said in the language of the elves. "I see that you have traveled the ways
of the Fey-Alamtine."
"YesтАФin desperate haste," replied the priest, stepping forward. He held his hand on the shoulder of the
elven boy who had run to him moments before. The youngster looked up at Brigit with palpable hostility, his
hand rested on the hilt of a tiny daggerтАФa kitchen tool, probablyтАФthat he wore in his belt. More and more
ragged elves came through, until well over a hundred had assembled in the clearing before the dark cliff.
"We are the Thy-Tach," continued the cleric. Brigit saw that he held the Alamtine Triangle in his hand.
She had seen one example of the rare artifact before, the last time a tribe had come through the gate. "Our
village was attacked by some monstrous horror, a three-legged creature as big as a hill. We had no
recourse but flight!"
"EasyтАФyou're safe now," the knight said, reaching out a hand to clasp the priest on the shoulder. Her
touch seemed to steady him.
"My name is Pallarynd," said the priest quietly. "I thank you for your kind welcome."
"I've seen tribes come through the gate of the Fey-Alamtine before in my lifetime, and the shock of the
transition is always upsetting. That's why you'll need to rest here for some time before you continue on,"
Brigit explained.
"It really worked, didn't it?" asked Pallarynd, his tone amazed, looking back at the Fey-Alamtine. The
magical gate again looked like a shimmering wall of wet obsidian. "Torcelly had kept this ancient triangle for
centuries. She'd never tell me what it was for, but she said that we might need it sometime. Now it has
brought the village here, most of us alive."
"It's the way we ensure the survival of our race," Brigit replied. "Only on Evermeet can the elves reign
over all the land. Everywhere else the humans press, or, even worse, other creatures. It is the
Fey-Alamtine that gives hope to those elves such as yourselves, too isolated or too threatened to flee on
foot."