"Melanie Rawn - Dragon Star 3 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

"Don't start sounding like Lord Andry," Mirsath warned as they climbed the stairs. "Reason and
logic tell me that the collapse of the moat had an even chance of washing the pearl either
direction down the tunnel. It was luck."
"As you say, my lord. Good night, and sleep well."
The next morning they met in a room Mirsath's grandfather had rather pompously termed the Hall of
Petitions. Because most consultations were done out in the fields or in the village, and rarely
through so formal a method as a petition, everyone at Lowland simply called it "the office." They
ignored the ranks of chairs posted along the walls and gathered around the fruitwood table that
old Lord Baisal had fondly pictured awash in respectfully worded parchments pleading for his
favor.
Saumer was bright-eyed and refreshed after half a night's sleep in a real bedтАФand a second hot
bath before breakfast this morning. At Mirsath's request he explained the logistics of the Battle
of Catha Heights while they waited for Karanaya. Eventually she arrived, dressed in a plain, high-
necked gown of bright red wool. The Tears of the Dragon,
all six of them bound in silver wire, hung from a short chain around her throat.
Johlarian watched Saumer carefully for reaction. The young man didn't even blink. He complimented
Karanaya on the jewels; she thanked him prettily for retrieving the missing one; they settled down
to business.
Or would have, if Mirsath hadn't asked, "Your grace, do you see anything now when you look at the
pearls?"
"Certainly," was the ready reply. "Don't you, Johlarian?"
The Sunrunner concentrated. Then he stopped concentrating. He pushed all his education and logic
aside, opening himself as he had not willingly done since the night some unknown woman had come in
the guise of the Goddess to make a man of him.
The pearls began to shine.
Not as the single one had when he searched for it by Sunrunner means in the moat. Then, the lost
gem had worn an angry greenish shimmer. Now all six were strangely serene, luminous, darkly
iridescent.
"Gentle Goddess," he murmured. "The High Prince showed me what to look for, and the one of them
aloneтАФbut all of them togetherтАФ"
"It looks like you're wearing a black rainbow, Lady Karanaya," Saumer told her. "It spreads in a
sort of burst over your head. Too bad you can't see it."
She fingered the pearls. "They're beautiful just as they are. Thank you again, Prince Saumer."
"No trouble," he answered with a grin. "As you saw. Now, let's see what kind of support we can
give Prince Tilal when he arrives. The flood wasn't such a disaster after all, you knowтАФI heard
about the bath the Vellant'im took in the moat. Mud will keep them out as surely as water. I'm
worried about that causeway, though. Can you show me the plans of the castle, please?"
The childhood accident that had crippled Prince Elsen of Grib made walking painful and riding a
torment. This had not prevented him from climbing into a saddle for the journey to Goddess Keep
when the call went out for help. Now, within sight of the great seaside castle on this fifty-ninth


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day
of Winter and the fourteenth of his journey, his long agony finally caught up with him.
He had been thinking of it as comparable to childbirth. Weak as his wife Selante was after two
days of an exhausting and dangerous labor, she had found that final reserve of strength that
allowed their son to be born. Surely, Elsen thought, surely if she could endure such wracking pain