"Nancy Varian - Berberick - Dalamar the Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varian Nancy)

woman who heard him not with her ears but in her mind.
No, Phair Caron said, her voice slipping into Blood Gem's mind like a tendril
of black smoke. Not tinder! We'll burn the forest if we must, but something
must remain. We're to take these arrogant elves down from their high perches,
but we have to leave something for the army to occupy and a cowed populace
ready to work for the Dark Queen and support her advance. Dead elves do us no
good at all.
Blood Gem snorted, and a small fireball burst alight in the sky. Dead elves
offer no resistance, and we can fill up that aspenwood-or what my kin and I
will leave of it-with slaves to do whatever work will be required.
Phair reached out to pat the red's shoulder, not a gesture the dragon felt,
but one he recognized and appreciated in its intent. It isn't about working
slaves, my friend. Or it's not all about that. What it's all about is reaping
souls, eh?
For the Dark Queen.
Phair Caron nodded, again an unseen gesture, but one felt.
All they did, she and her dragons, was for the Dark Queen, for Takhisis. Dark
Lady, you are my light, Phair Caron thought, the thought a prayer. In
darkness, yours is the light of balefires, of funeral pyres. In darkness,
yours is the hand that reached out to me. She sighed, thinking of the dire
glory of Her Dark Majesty. It had been but a mere handful of centuries since
Takhisis had re-entered the world and come back from the Abyss after the fall
of Istar. Her door into the world was-and Phair Caron thought the irony
delicious- the ruin of the very Temple of Istar where the mad Kingpriest of
the city-state had proclaimed himself a god and brought down the ire of all
deities upon the world that condoned his madness. During those centuries
Takhisis had wandered abroad, laying plans, seeking allies among the ruthless
to elevate to commanders in her growing army- Phair Caron grinned, a wide,
wolfish grin-and waking dragons to pair with those commanders. Now Takhisis
had an army of ogres and goblins, of dragonmen and humans, led by her
commanders, her highlords.
And waking dragons, Blood Gem echoed, sighing as though he yet recalled his
long sleep and sudden waking. Now we are here. We are hungry to fight in her
cause, Highlord, and we yearn to taste elf blood.
Phair Caron spoke aloud, her words carried upon the wind of their flight.
"Soon enough. Soon enough you'll have what you want." She laughed, suddenly
and sharply. "But elf blood is a pale drink, my friend. Watery and weak." She
pointed downward to where the Thon-Thalas widened and the lights of Silvanost
could be seen in the distance. "These elves have no use for any god but their
puling gods of Good, Paladine-E'li, as they call him-and his weakling lot.
They'll all be on their knees to us before the moons go dark."
And it would be, Blood Gem knew, like sweet wine on the Dark Lady's lips to
see those Silvanesti elves bow the neck to her highlord, to be forced to tear
down their pale temples to weak gods and use their vaunted skills to erect
shrines to the dark gods. Morgion of the Black Wind would spread disease
through their ranks. Hiddukel would turn all their feeble truths to lies. At
last Takhisis herself, Her Dark Majesty, would rule in that land where her
followers had for so long been forbidden to enter.
The dragon climbed higher and turned north toward the borders of the
Silvanesti. Behind, in the southern foothills of the Khalkist Mountains, the