"Christopher Rowley - Bazil 07 - Dragon Ultimate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rowley Christopher)

"Don't ask."

Indeed, dragonboy eyes could instantly see the difference in the
Broketail dragon. His hide hadn't been brushed very well in a long time.
His joboquin was full of loose places. The dragonboys sighed at the waste.
The legendary Broketail dragon, which any one of them would have given
an arm to tend for, was in the care of Curf!

The carousing went on late into the night. The dancing on the temple
forecourt was still going strong as the bells rang for midnight.

In all the commotion no one noticed the hunched figure stumbling
along Dock Street. No one noticed it drop a squirming sack on the ground
behind the run-down warehouses by Bleek Street.

A knife flashed and the sack was cut open to disgorge a dozen or more
black rats which streaked away to cover as soon as they were out of the
bag.


Chapter Two

Across the Bright Sea from the Argonath lay the Isles of Cunfshon, the
spiritual home of the reborn civilization of the Nine Argonath cities.
There, on a bluff overlooking the great harbor of the city of Cunfshon
stood the official city of Andiquant, nerve center of the Empire of the
Rose.

Within the walls of Andiquant stretched rows of brick buildings,
housing the offices of the bureaucracy that ran the empire. In one of those
anonymous buildings lay the Office of Insight, an organization that dealt
with diplomatic matters, trade issues, and military strategy.

Buried within the Office of Insight was a hidden suite of offices for the
shadowy Office of Unusual Insight, the witch-run secret service of the
empire.

In a plain little room at the end of a bland corridor of equally plain little
rooms, four witches met around a square, wooden table.

On the left side sat a woman of plain and unexpressive features clad in
an old, well-worn, gray smock under a homespun robe. On the right sat a
regal figure in black velvet, her face a mask of ancient full-lipped beauty,
her eyes alight with a deadly, penetrating intelligence.

Between these two polar oppositesтАФthe Gray Lady, Lessis of Valmes,
and the Queen of Mice, Ribela of DefwodeтАФsat the minor witches Bell and
Selera.

Clad in the robes of their order, the younger witches kept a humble