"Dan Parkinson - Dragonlance Tales - Cataclysm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parkinson Dan)

Spontaneous fires arose in the dry grain fields, leaving
the countryside a wasteland of ash and cinder. In droves the
farmers were leaving, no longer able to fight the flames. All
this disaster, they claimed, had enraged Finn to the point
where, in the search for remedy, he had offered an
extravagant bounty to any bard or enchanter who could
extinguish the fires with song or incantation.
Hard words about a curse drifted through one of the
windows. I heard the name of my father. It lightened my
steps somehow, as I passed through the deserted village of
Ebrill in the early morning, then over the ruins of Llun and
Mercher, moving ever westward, believing now that my
quest would at last be done. Endaf was the last place Finn
would look for a far-flung quarry, and my father's name
rode on the smoky air.
It was midmorning when I reached Endaf. I wandered
the village for a while, weaving a path amid the deserted
cottages and charred huts and lean-tos, all looking like a
grim memory of a village. And it was odd walking there,
passing the old flame-gutted ruins of the inn and knowing
that somewhere in its vanished upper story my father had
received the scars I had mysteriously inherited.
I turned abruptly from the ashes. I was eighteen and
impatient, and had come very far for the truth. The old acrid
smell of Endaf faded as I walked from the ruins on a rocky
and shell-strewn path, and as I trudged west I caught the
sharp smell of salt air and heard the faint cries of gulls and
cormorants.

*****

About a mile from the center of the village, Finn's Ear
burrowed into a sheer limestone cliff overlooking the Cape
of Caergoth. Black gulls perched at its edge, the gray rock
white with their guano, loud with their wailing cries.
Steps had been chopped in the steep rock face, whether
by the bandits or by a more ancient hand it was hard to tell,
given the constant assault of storm and birds. I took my
place in the middle of a rag-tag group of beggars, farmers,
bards and would-be bandits, each awaiting an audience
with King Finn of the Dark Hand.
As I waited, the bards talked around and over me in
their language of rumor. The gold thread at the hems of
cape and cloak was tattered, frayed; each wooden harp was
chipped and warped, each bronze one dented and tarnished.
No famous poets these, no Quivalen Sath or Arion of
Coastlund. They were courtiers with trained voices and a
studied adequacy for the strings. Now, in single file on the
rocky steps, each encouraged the other, thereby
encouraging himself.