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

to soothe the animal. As he did so, he looked around uneasily. What was it? It was no sound of war,
no sound of nature.
Kharas turned. The sound came from behind him, from the lands he had just left, lands where his
kinsmen were still slaughtering each other in the name of justice. The sound increased in
magnitude, becoming a low, dull, booming sound that grew louder and louder. Kharas almost
imagined he could see the sound, coming closer and closer. The dwarven hero shuddered and
lowered his head as the dreadful roar came nearer, thundering across the Plains.
It is Reorx, he thought in grief and horror. It is the voice of the angry god. We are doomed.
The sound hit Kharas, along with a shock wave-a blast of heat and scorching, foul-smelling wind
that nearly blew him from the saddle. Clouds of sand and dust and ash enveloped him, turning day
into a horrible, perverted night. Trees around him bent and twisted, his horses screamed in terror
and nearly bolted. For a moment, it was all Kharas could do to retain control of the panic-stricken
animals.
Blinded by the stinging dust cloud, choking and coughing, Kharas covered his mouth and tried-as
best he could in the strange darkness-to cover the eyes of the horses as well. How long he stood in
that cloud of sand and ash and hot wind, he could not remember. But, as suddenly as it came, it
passed.
The sand and dust settled. The trees straightened. The horses grew calm. The cloud drifted past on
the gentler winds of autumn, leaving behind a silence more dreadful than the thunderous noise.
Filled with dreadful foreboding, Kharas urged his tired horses on as fast as he could and rode up
into the hills, seeking desperately for some vantage site. Finally, he found it an out-cropping of
rock. Tying the pack animals with their sorrowful burden to a tree, Kharas rode his horse out onto
the rock and looked out over the Plains of Dergoth. Stopping, he stared down below him in awe.
Nothing living stirred. In fact, there was nothing there at all; nothing except blackened, blasted sand
and rock.
Both armies were completely wiped out. So devastating was the explosion that not even corpses
remained upon the ash-covered Plain. Even the very face of the land itself had changed. Kharas's
horrified gaze went to where the magical fortress of Zhaman had once stood, its tall, graceful spires
ruling the Plains. It, too, had been destroyed-but not totally. The fortress had collapsed in upon
itself and now-most horribly-its ruins resembled a human skull sitting, grinning, upon the barren
Plain of Death.
"Reorx, Father, Forger, forgive us," murmured Kharas, tears blurring his vision. Then, his head
bowed in grief, the dwarven hero left the site, returning to Thorbardin.
The dwarves would believe-for so Kharas himself would report-that the destruction of both armies
on the Plains of Dergoth was brought about by Reorx. That the god had, in his anger, hurled his
hammer down upon the land, smiting his children.
But the Chronicles of Astinus truly record what happened upon the Plains of Dergoth that day:
Now at the height of his magical powers, the archmage, Raistlin, known also as Fistandantilus, and
the White-robed cleric of Paladine, Crysania, sought entry into the Portal that leads to the Abyss,
there to challenge and fight the Queen of Darkness.
Dark crimes of his own this archmage had committed to reach this point-the pinnacle of his
ambition. The Black Robes he wore were stained with blood; some of it his own. Yet this man
knew the human heart. He knew how to wrench it and twist it and make those who should have
reviled him and spurned him come to admire him instead. Such a one was Lady Crysania, of the
House of Tarinius. A Revered Daughter of the church, she possessed one fatal flaw in the white
marble of her soul. And that flaw Raistlin found and widened so that the crack would spread
throughout her being and eventually reach her heart....
Crysania followed him to the dread Portal. Here she called upon her god and Paladine answered,
for, truly, she was his chosen. Raistlin called upon his magic and he was successful, for no wizard
had yet lived as powerful as this young man.