"Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman - Legends 03 - Test Of The Twins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weis Margaret)

"Hey!" he yelled. "Hullo! Are you asleep? Wake up." Reaching down, he shook the figure, only to
have it roll over at his touch, lying stiff and rigid.
"Oh!" Tas took a step backward, then stopped. "Oh, Caramon," he said softly. "It's Bupu!"
Once, long ago, Raistlin had befriended the gully dwarf. Now she stared up at the starlit sky with
empty, sightless eyes. Dressed in filthy, ragged clothing, her small body was pitifully thin, her
grubby face wasted and gaunt. Around her neck was a leather thong. Attached to the end of the
thong was a stiff, dead lizard. In one hand, she clutched a dead rat, in the other she held a dried-up
chicken leg. As death approached, she had summoned up all the magic she possessed, Tas thought
sadly, but it hadn't helped.
"She hasn't been dead long," Caramon said. Limping over, he knelt down painfully beside the
shabby little corpse. "Looks like she starved to death." He reached out his hand and gently closed
the staring eyes. Then he shook his head. "I wonder how she came to live this long? The bodies we
saw back in Solace must have been dead months, at least."
"Maybe Raistlin protected her," Tasslehoff said before he thought.
Caramon scowled. "Bah! It's just coincidence, that's all," he said harshly. "You know gully
dwarves, Tas. They can live on anything. My guess is that they were the last creatures to survive.
Bupu, being the smartest of the lot, just managed to survive longer than the rest. But-in the end,
even a gully dwarf would perish in this god-cursed land." He shrugged. "Here, help me stand."
"What-what are we going to do with her, Caramon?" Tas asked bleakly. "Are-are we just going to
leave her?"
"What else can we do?" Caramon muttered gruffly. The sight of the gully dwarf and the nearness of
the Forest were bringing back painful, unwelcome memories. "Would you want to be buried in that
mud?" He shivered and glanced about. The storm clouds were rushing closer; he could see the
lightning streaking down to the ground and hear the roar of the thunder. "Besides, we don't have
much time, not the way those clouds are moving in."
Tas continued to stare at him sorrowfully.
"There's nothing left alive to bother her anyway, Tas," he snapped irritably. Then, seeing the
grieved expression on the kender's face, Caramon slowly removed his own cloak and carefully
spread it over the emaciated corpse. "We better get going," he said.

"Good-bye, Bupu," Tas said softly. Patting the stiff little hand that was tightly clutching the dead
rat, he started to pull the corner of the cloak over it when he saw something flash in Lunitari's s red
light. Tas caught his breath, thinking he recognized the object. Carefully, he pried the gully dwarf's
death-stiffened fingers apart. The dead rat fell to the ground and-with it-an emerald.
Tas picked up the jewel. In his mind, he was back to ... where had it been? Xak Tsaroth?
They had been in a sewer pipe hiding from draconian troops. Raistlin had been seized by a fit of
coughing.... Bupu gazed at him anxiously, then thrust her small hand into her bag, fished around for
several moments, and came up with an object that she held up to the light. She squinted at it then
sighed and shook her head. "This not what I want," she mumbled. Tasslehoff, catching sight of a
brilliant, colorful flash, crept closer. "What is it?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.
Raistlin, too, was staring at the object with wide glittering eyes. Bupu shrugged. "Pretty rock," she
said without interest, searching through the bag once more.
"An emerald!" Raistlin wheezed.
Bupu glanced up. "You like?" she asked Raistlin. "Very much!" The mage gasped.
"You keep." Bupu put the jewel in the mage's hand. Then, with a cry of triumph, she brought out
what she had been searching for. Tas, leaning up close to see the new wonder, drew back in disgust.
It was a dead-very dead-lizard. There was a piece of chewed-on leather tied around the lizard's stiff
tail. Bupu held it toward Raistlin.
"You wear around neck," she said. "Cure cough."
"So Raistlin was here," Tas murmured. "He gave this to her, he must have! But why? A charm ... a