"Andre Norton - Quag Keep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

playing pieces for the fantasy war games were starting to try to outdo each other in the production of
unusual monsters, noble fighters, astute elves, powerful dwarves, and all the other characters a player
might call for, identify with while playing, even keep on display like some fabulous antique chessmen
between games. Martin had envied those able to equip themselves with the more ornate and detailed
figures. But the best he had seen in displays could not compare to this. Within him came a sudden
compulsion; he must have this one. It was beyond any doubt meant for him.
Eckstern was still talking as he unwrapped other figures, set them out, his elbow firmly planted
meanwhile on the referee notes for the coming game. But Martin's attention never Wavered from the
swordsman. This was his! He grasped it lovingly.
There were good smells and stale ones fighting for dominance in a room lit only by baskets of fire
wasps, one of which was close enough so that he could see every old stain on the table at which he sat.
By his right hand stood a drinking horn mounted on a base of dull metal. His right hand...
He stared at both hands, the fists lightly clenched and lying on the scored board. This was (it
seemed that his mind had skipped something of importance as a heart might skip a beat), this was, of
course, the Sign of Harvel's Axe, a dubious inn on the edge of the Thieves' Quarter in the city of
Greyhawk. He frowned, troubled. But there had been something else-something of importance-of which
only a hint slithered so swiftly through his brain that he could not fasten on it quickly enough.
His name was Milo Jagon, a swordsman of some experience, now unemployed. That much was
clear. And the hands before him were bare below sleeves of very supple, darkcolored mail which had a
hint of copper in it, yet was darker brown. Turned back against his wrists were mitts fastened to the
sleeves. And about each of his thumbs was the wide band of a ring. The one to the right was set with an
oblong stone of dull green, across which, in no discernible pattern, wandered tiny red veins and dots. The
setting on the left was even more extraordinary-an oval crystal of gray, clouded and filmed.
On the right wrist there was a glint of something else; again that faintest hint of other memory even
of alarm touched Milo's mind. He jerked down the right mitt and saw, banded over the mail itself, a wide
bracelet of a metal as richly bright as newly polished copper. It was made of two bands between which,
swung on hardly visible gimbals, were a series of dice-three-sided, four-sided, eight-sided, six-sided.
They were of the same bright metal as the bracelet that supported them. But the numbers on them were
wrought in glistening bits of gemstones, so tiny he did not see how any gem smith could have set them in
so accurately.
This-with his left hand he touched that bracelet, finding the metal warm to his fingertips-this was
important! His scowl grew deeper. But why and how?
And he could not remember having come here. Also-he raised his head to stare about
uneasily-he sensed that he was watched. Yet there were none in that murky room he Was quick enough
to catch eyeing him.
The nearest table to his own was also occupied by a single man. He had the bulk, the wide
shoulders and thick, mail-covered forearms, of a man who would be formidable in a fight. Milo assessed
him, only half-consciously, with the experienced eye of one who had needed many times in the past to
know the nature of an enemy, and that quickly.
The cloak the other man had tossed to the bench beside him was of hide covered with horny
bristles. And his helmet was surmounted with a realistic and daunting representation of a snarling boar
brought dangerously to bay. Beneath the edge of it, his face was wide of the cheekbone and square of
jaw, and he was staring, as Milo had been, at his hands on the tabletop before him. Between them
crouched a bright, green-blue pseudo-dragon, its small wings fluttering, its arrow-pointed tongue darting
in and out.
And on his right wrist-Milo drew a deep breath-this stranger wore a bracelet twin to his own, as
far as the swordsman could see without truly examining it.
Boar helm, boar cloak-memories and knowledge Milo did not consciously search for arose. This
other was a berserker, and one with skill enough to turn were-boar if he so desired. Such were chancy
companions at the best, and the swordsman did not wonder now that their two tables, so close together,