"Mel Odom - Forgotten Realms - Threat from the Sea Trilogy 02 - Under Fallen Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Odom Mel)

snapped open, commanded by a force outside himself. He watched in swiftly growing horror as Khorrch
took a small copper piece from the conch shell at his side.
The morkoth laid the copper piece on one of his human palms and continued his spellcasting. His
voice rose, and he curled his fingers over the copper piece, holding tight. In the next instant the copper
piece vanished in a brief burst of flame. Khorrch opened his palm, revealing unblemished skin.
Then Flyys felt as though someone had buried a spear in his head, bursting through bone and flesh.
He screamed and shivered against the ropes.
"Tell me of the Eye," the morkoth ordered harshly. "Tell me of the Taker's Eye. Tell me where I may
find it."
Gasping, fighting against the pain that filled his mind, thinking his skull must surely be peeling back
like an onion against the creature's magical assault, Flyys tried to think of anything but the triton legends
about the Taker's Eye. It proved impossible.
"The Taker's ... Eye," Flyys heard his own voice saying, "is . . . kept ... in Myth Nantar!" Once the
words had been forced through his clenched teeth, the spell's force left him. He sagged weakly against
the mast, hung there by the ropes.
"Myth Nantar," Vurgrom said. "I've never heard of it." "You shouldn't have," Khorrch said. "The city
is magical, something that wasn't for the eyes of the surface dwellers. If they had known, it would have
been raided long ago."
"Aye, but who's to say this place hasn't been raided by another race?" Vurgrom demanded. "One
that makes its home beneath these waters?"
The morkoth shook its head in a very humanlike gesture. "No. That's not possible."
"Why?" the pirate captain persisted.
"Because," Flyys croaked, feeling some of his confidence return, "Myth Nantar was lost to everyone
thousands of years ago. It lies hidden and barred. No one may enter it. Now or ever."
"You're wrong, longmane whelpling," Khorrch snarled. "There is one who may enter."
"Not the Taker," Flyys promised. "Our legends tell us the walls will hold against even his might."
"Not him," the morkoth mage agreed, "but there will be another who will bring its walls down. One
whose destiny lies with the Taker's, their futures so intertwined that one may not live on without the
other."
Flyys wanted to rail against the morkoth's words, but he didn't have the strength. He had lost his
friends, betrayed some of the legacy that had been left to him. Only the dying remained. He was certain
neither Vurgrom or Khorrch would suffer him to live.
As if some of the mental bond that had existed between them still remained, Khorrch gazed into the
young triton's eyes and hissed, "Ah, longmane, there yet remains one service you may do for my people."
Flyys tried to summon up enough liquid to spit, but his throat was already too dry from exposure in
the wind.
The morkoth mage crossed to the ship's railing where the net had brought them aboard. The
creature gestured. A moment later the net was hoisted again, lifting yet another morkoth to the deck.
"Stay back from her," Khorcch warned the ship's crew.
Immediately the sailors stepped back from the new arrival, some of them making the signs of their
gods and calling out their names.
Flyys stared at the morkoth. It was noticeably smaller than the mage, and possessed only tentacles
instead of hands. It swayed drunkenly across the deck as it approached the young triton.
"No!" the young triton yelled. He wrenched against the ropes again, but it was in vain. Instead, he
concentrated on Persana and prayed. He couldn't close his eyes even though he knew what was going to
happen.
The female morkoth's abdomen belled out, looking as though the creature had just eaten a big meal.
Flyys knew that wasn't true. It came closer, reaching out tentatively with all four tentacles. The rubbery
flesh slid syrup-sticky across Flyys's face and chest as it investigated him.
The morkoth mage stood nearby, though obviously not in any proximity. It clutched a long-bladed