"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

lapped at the cool liquid like an animal. And the moment she touched the
water, there was a sharp click.

The woman clawed at her neck, and an elaborately jeweled slave-collar came
away in her hand. She dropped it unheeded beside her, and sank back on the
stones, exhausted.

Alara's attention was caught and held by the sunlight winking on the gems of
the neckpiece. All humans wore slave-collars, but she had never seen one
this ornate. Easily a thumb-length wide, it seemed to be made of solid gold,
with emeralds, sapphires and rubies arranged in a series of geometrical
patterns all around it. Her acquisitive soul hungered for it; no dragon ever
had enough gems for its hoard, and this bit of jewelry drew her as nothing
before ever had. She wanted it, not only to possess it, but to wear it

And that anomaly warned her off, before she shifted fully back to draconic
form in order to seize the thing. Suddenly alarmed, she eyed the collar
carefully. Sure enough, there, among the gems, just over the point where the
collar fastened, were three tiny, inconspicuous elf-stones. She knew the type,
and the setting of the stones. One to hold the collar locked onto the slave's
neck, one negating any mind-magic the slave might have, and one, evidently
still active, holding a spell of glamorie that made anyone who saw the collar
want to wear it. A safe way to ensure that no slave ever abandoned his collar
willingly.

Suddenly the collar no longer seemed quite so desirable.

Then, like a shout, a voice cried inside Alara's mind. :Ah, gods--!:

Alara had one moment of surprise before she found herself pulled into the
woman's mind.

Serina Daeth. Not "the woman." Alara was just barely able to hold on to her
own identity, caught in the desperate grip of Serina's mind.

Serina was too fevered to actually build coherent thoughts; Alara found
herself overwhelmed by memories, feelings, emotions, all tumbled together,
out of sequence.

Alara pulled herself free of the woman's mind with a gut-wrenching effort,
and lay for a moment with her head pounding and a terrible pain between her
eyes.

She's a concubine, the dragon thought, amazed. She had never even gotten
near enough to one of them to really see them well, much less listen to their
thoughts. Lord Dyran--that must be V'Kass Dyran Lord Hernalth. He was an
elder, practically chief in Council. But how did a High Lord's concubine end
up in the desert?

She reached out a little, cautious mental finger, and touched the edges of the