"Douglas Niles - Forgotten Realms - Moonshae 03 - Darkwell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niles Douglas)

now it was a festering sore upon the land, spreading decay like a cancer
through the rocks and clay and sand of the earth.
The former soul of the goddess now gave Bhaal a window into the world of man,
and he liked what he saw. Slowly the god of murder moved toward the Darkwell.
He knew exactly what to do.
The stag stumbled weakly against a rotten trunk. Its bedraggled flanks heaved
with the effort of breathing. Its sweeping antlers swayed toward the ground,
and the creature's dry, swollen tongue fell limply from its jaws. Unsteadily
the huge deer lumbered away from the dead tree, past many more, through the
dead forest.
Blinking in confusion and despair, the animal sought some sign of the Myrloch
Vale it had known all its life. The broad valley of sun, the brilliant leaves
of autumn, vast meadows of flowers swaying easily in the fresh breeze ... all
these things were gone.
The stag's ribs showed clearly through its torn pelt, for it had not eaten in
many days. Vet this was not the greatest of the animal's needs.
The stag had to find water. It sensed that it could live no more than a few
hours without it. The swollen tongue flopped loosely, and the wide eyes were
obscured by an unnatural glaze.
A feeble breath of wind stirred the dead wood, and with it came the smell of
water. Not clean water, to be sureтАФthe scent was well mixed with those of rot
and decayтАФbut it was the scent of water nonetheless. With renewed vigor, the
stag trotted toward the promising sign.
Soon the great deer came upon a black pond. The stag
DARKWELL
ignored the unnatural stillness of the water. It paid scant notice to the
twenty stone statues arrayed around the perimeter of the pool, except to
ascertain that the humanlike figures were indeed stone and not flesh. Even had
they been living huntsmen, however, it is doubtful the deer could have turned
from that compelling pond.
Bhaal watched the stag approach, willing it closer and closer. The god
remembered his flash of pleasure upon the death of the eagle, and Bhaal
relished the thought of the much larger body that approached.
The swollen tongue reached for the black surface. At the last moment, the stag
sensed the wrongness of the water. It tried to pull back, to raise its broad
antlers away from this awful thing. But it was too late.
The neck bent, pulled by a force far greater than the stag's own muscles, and
its muzzle struck the surface of the Darkwell. A crackling blaze of blue light
illuminated the stag's body, casting an intense glow across the pond for an
instant.
Then the deer was gone. As with the eagle, its body had caused no ripple to
mar the inky surface of the well. Only the skull remained, resting on the
muddy bottom in several inches of water. Its empty eye sockets stared skyward,
while overhead spread the massive rack of antlers like a ghastly tombstone.
Robyn of Gwynneth lay in the hold of the lunging ship and prayed for a word
from her goddess. The wooden timbers around her seemed to thrum softly with
the power of her prayer, but that was all she sensed. She felt lonely and
afraid, fearing for the Earthmother more than for herself.
In the darkness of the hold, she felt the touch of her spiritual mother, but
it was faint and frail. She sensed a growing void between herself and her