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

"Where have you been?" Joel demanded, taking the chair opposite her. He set his pack and
weapon beneath his chair. "Holly and I were worried about you."
"I hate just banging around," Jas explained. "So while you were away, I took some work as a
private courier for a high-up. Blood wanted to have me at her beck and call. So I left Dits's to stay at
her case."
Joel grinned at the amount of Sigilian slang the woman had managed to pick up after only
two weeks in this foreign place. Of course, that was to be expected. Jas was an experienced traveler.
She knew how to make herself fit in anywhere.
"So, did you and Holly unload all the pieces of the hand?" Jas asked.
Joel nodded. The artifact whose pieces he had dispersed throughout the multiverse had been
known as the Hand of Bane. He'd done it to help a paladin, Holly Harrowslough. Holly's god
wanted to be sure the hand could never be made whole and used to resurrect the evil god Bane.
"Holly's friend Bors showed us several portals to other planes where we could hide the
pieces," the bard explained to Jas. "Holly spilled the pieces into the void out over the edge of the
city. Then she was summoned to Elysium to give the ring finger of the hand to her god."
"What's Lathander going to do with a stone finger?" Jas asked.
Joel shrugged. "Use it for a paperweight? Who knows? Anyway, Holly was thrilled. She
waited around for two days, hoping to see you, but she couldn't keep her god waiting. She left for
Elysium this morning. She's not sure when shell be back."
The bard nodded as Jas's waiter set a mug of ale down in front of him and a fresh one in
front of Jas.
"She's probably secretly hoping Lathander will ask her to serve in his court or something,"
Jas said.
Joel nodded in agreement. That was his suspicion as well. As a paladin of the Order of the
Aster, Holly lived to serve the god Lathander. "She said she'd send word back if she wasn't
returning soon," Joel explained. "So we could return home."
"Joel, you mean you're not keen to stay in the Cage?" Jas asked with a grin, using the slang
term for Sigil.
Joel gave a quick glance at the tables nearby to be sure he didn't offend any eavesdroppers.
"No, not really. This city has more political intrigue than Waterdeep, the people are more arrogant
than Westgate merchants, and the air's more foul than a Zhentil Keep sewer," he answered.
"But that's all part of its charm," Jas replied.
Joel studied the winged woman's expression carefully, trying to determine if she was
serious. Jas came from the same world as Joel and Holly, a place Joel called the Realms, but which
Jas referred to as the world of Toril in the sphere of Realmspace. Jas had traveled through the void
to worlds in other spheres in a magical ship called a spelljammer. Joel found it hard to believe she
was now prepared to settle down in this awful city, but their last adventure had changed Jas.
Perhaps she had decided to give up her wandering.
Jas grinned. "It does have one thing in its favor," Jas said.
"What?" Joel asked.
"I don't stick out like a sore thumb here," she said.
"You don't stick out all that much," Joel said.
"Ha!" Jas retorted. "Back on Toril, it was bad enough when I just had wings. Wizards were
always trying to capture me to study me. People in the Realms would mistake me for a succubus or
an erinyes and run me out of town. Once there was this kid who thought I was a were-eagle and
tried to get me to attack him so he would contract lycanthropy and become a were-eagle, too. One
crazy lich tried to put me in his harem just because of my wings. Gods only know what would
happen if I went back to Realmspace now."
"If you'd stay in one place long enough for people to get to know you, they'd feel differently
about you," Joel pointed out.