"Kate Novak & Jeff Grubb - Lost Gods 3 - Tymora's Luck" - читать интересную книгу автора (Novak Kate)

"Neither child is the same as her dam," Lathander complained. There was the faintest hint of
a whine in his voice.
"But you are the same as ever, Lathander," Chauntea cried, throwing her arms up in a
gesture of annoyance. "You're always looking for beginnings. Some of us have tasks that must be
finished! Go! Let me complete my planting in peace!"
Lathander's face darkened like an eclipsed sun. "As you wish," he retorted hotly, and with
that, he spun about and flew quickly away in the direction he'd come, disappearing beyond the
distant horizon. There were black scorch marks where his feet had last touched the field. Halruaa's
harvest would be poor this year. Chauntea sighed, then turned back to her task.
Ayryn covered her crystal ball with her hands and raised her eyes to Montgomery's face.
The vision of Chauntea and her field vanished.
A moment of nervous silence followed. Then the room erupted with the sound of the
audience's applause. They had witnessed two gods having a lovers' spat. Not a run-of-the-mill
experience in anyone's book.
Montgomery held up her hand. The room grew silent again.
"Can you continue, Ayryn?" the leader of the Sensates asked the genasi scryer.
"Yes," Ayryn replied. She gazed once more into her crystal ball.
Darkness filled the room, complete blackness. There was the sound of water dripping in a
cave. Then a red light shone up from the floor. The light came from a round pool of waterтАФor
perhaps bloodтАФnearly ten feet in diameter. A drop of liquid fell on the surface of the pool and
spattered like hot oil in water. The light from the pool flickered as the surface rippled.
Someone snarled a female voice, "Stupid eyewing, get away from here. Okim, Airdna, bat
that beast out of here before it poisons my spell."
A figure sat down beside the pool and tossed back a mane of snow-white hair, revealing the
features of a beautiful maiden. She was quite tall, with a voluptuous figure and impossibly small
waist. Her skin appeared red from the light of the pool, but Bors, whose catlike eyes could not be
deceived by tricks of the light, could see that her flesh was as white as a corpse's, but flushed about
her cheeks and throat with the palest blue and violet color. She wore a gown of the darkest black,
which fit her like a glove, and a tiara of black pearls. The goddess raised her head, and someone in
the Sensate audience gasped softly. The deity's eyes were rimmed with yellow and red and blazed
with madness.
This, Bors realized, was the goddess Beshaba. No doubt Ayryn had been influenced by
Chauntea's suggestion to Lathander that he seek out one of Tyche's daughters. Beshaba was known
as Tyche's "unpleasant" daughter. She was also known as the Maid of Misfortune. She had
dominion over bad luck.
Ayryn's projection of Beshaba was not gigantic. The form the goddess wore was human-
sized. She was joined a minute later by two winged women of great beauty with demonic eyes. The
women wore silken pants, silver breastplates engraved with the stag horns of Beshaba, and swords
with serrated blades. Bors recognized the winged women as alu-fiends, creatures of evil from the
Abyss, where Beshaba made her home.
An old man's face appeared on the surface of the pool of red liquid.
"There he is," Beshaba whispered with an evil smile on her lips.
The goddess was scrying on someone, just as they were scrying on her.
"Doljust," Beshaba said, "it is time to pay for slighting me."
The vision in Beshaba's pool seemed to move away so that the goddess, and those Sensates
who spied upon her, could see more of Doljust and the landscape around him.
Doljust was old, as evidenced by his gray hair and beard and wrinkled features, but he was
by no means feeble. He rode straight and tall in the saddle of a prancing mare. A handsome pair of
hunting hounds circled his mount, barking with excitement. He wore neither fancy armor nor noble
velvets, but his clothing was well made and sturdy, and his mare was a fine-looking beast.