"Douglas Niles - Druidhome 3 - The Druid Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

all too quickly, the nightmares began. Or perhaps, the nightmare. Robyn had begun to suspect that each
night her daughter suffered the same dream over and over again, so consistent and predictable was the
pattern of her distress.
Each night, as the dream began, Deirdre stiffened reflexively in the bed, thrashing with her feet. Her
chest rose and fell as if she gasped for breath. Every attempt to awaken herтАФmany had been
madeтАФfailed to wrest her from the internal trance. Indeed, they seemed only to heighten her terror, so at
last there was nothing to do but wait for the nightmare to run its course.
It would not do so until the terror built to the climax that always exploded in a scream of mindless,
ultimate terror. Then Deirdre would awaken, and for a short time, her father or mother would hold her as a
little girl again, gently rocking her to sleep, not knowing how many hoursтАФor minutesтАФmight pass before
the cycle began again.
"She came for me ... to rescue me!" Tristan groaned softly, acutely conscious of the young woman who
finally slept in the next room. "This wouldn't have happened except for that! How can any father bear that
guilt?"
The image still burned in his mind: He saw his daughter holding the crystal mirror, the powerful artifact
of a dark and evil god, Talos the Stormbringer. The agent of that god had attacked them savagely, but when
Deirdre had confronted the beast with the mirror, the glass had shattered and carried the monster to a
horrifying demise.
But then, for Tristan, the real horror had begun. The shards of the broken mirror had swirled into a small
cyclone, surrounding Deirdre, trapping her in a glittering, whirling column. Then the whirlwind collapsed, and
Tristan had stared in horror as the bits of glass had knifed through his daughter's skin, piercing her in a
thousand places.
Yet she had lost not a drop of bloodтАФindeed, they could find no physical wound whatsoever upon her.
This malaise instead gnawed at her spirit and her soul, they knew.
"She came willingly to your rescue," the queen replied, her voice firm against her husband's despair. "As
did Alicia, and many others."
"AyeтАФand you as well, my queen. So many paid such a grievous cost," sighed the king, wrapping a
strong arm around his wife. Unconsciously he raised the end of his arm, not allowing the stump of his wrist
to touch his wife's shoulder.
She raised her hand and brought his handless arm fully around her. "We all paid our pricesтАФand would
do so again!" Robyn declared.
Tristan shook his head, disparaging his own wound. "When Keane gets back with Patriarch Bakar, my
hand can be restored, but I suspect no such easy cure awaits Deirdre."
At the mention of the high cleric of Chauntea, Robyn stiffened slightly. She turned to face her husband
frankly. "Even the healing of the New Gods doesn't come without its costs. Don't be too quick to assume
their success."
Finally Tristan smiled. "Whatever that cost, I'll pay it. And you know Bakar is a good and decent man.
After all, he came to Callidyrr and taught you for nearly a decade!"
"It seems like more than a lifetime ago," Robyn said, clearly uneasy with the subject. "I am a daughter of
the goddess again."
"Still, it wasn't long ago that Chauntea offered our hope of growth and guidance ... when the
Earthmother abandoned us to the New Gods."
"She did not abandon us!" Robyn replied, her voice tight. "It was weaknessтАФa weakness that I did
nothing to soothe! All those years she lay insensate, and I turned to the worship of another rather than labor
for her return!"
"We needed the protection of a goddess during those years, and Chauntea gave us her blessing," Tristan
countered, shaking his head firmly. "Now her patriarch, I know, will come to answer my need."
"You're right," Robyn said, trying to drive the tension from her body. For once her efforts were not
successful. She still felt the lingering pulse of anger in her veins.
"Who knows?" asked the king, drawing his wife beneath his arm again. "Perhaps Bakar can help