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

dwarf boots. But his shoes weren't nearly as heavy as his heart. Over and over he muttered to
himself, "This isn't Solace, this isn't Solace, this isn't Solace," until it began to sound like one of
Raistlin's magical incantations.
Rounding the bend, Tas fearfully raised his eyes-and heaved a vast sigh of relief.
"What did I tell you, Caramon?" he cried over the wailing of the wind. "Look, nothing there,
nothing there at all. No Inn, no town, nothing." He slipped his small hand into Caramon's large one
and tried to pull him backward. "Now, let's go. I've got an idea. We can go back to the time when
Fizban made the golden span come out of the sky-"
But Caramon, shaking off the kender, was limping ahead, his face grim. Coming to a halt, he stared
down at the ground. "What's this then, Tas?" he demanded in a voice taut with fear.
Chewing nervously on the end of his topknot, the kender came up to stand beside Caramon.
"What's what?" he asked stubbornly.
Caramon pointed.
Tas sniffed. "So, it's a big cleared-off space on the ground. All right, maybe something was there.
Maybe a big building was there. But it isn't there now, so why worry about it? I-Oh, Caramon!"
The big man's injured knee suddenly gave way. He staggered, and would have fallen if Tas hadn't
propped him up. With Tas's help, Caramon made his way over to the stump of what had been an
unusually large vallenwood, on the edge of the empty patch of mud-covered ground. Leaning
against it, his face pale with pain and dripping with sweat, Caramon rubbed his injured knee.
"What can I do to help?" Tas asked anxiously, wringing his hands. "I know! I'll find you a crutch!
There must be lots of broken branches lying about. I'll go look."
Caramon said nothing, only nodded wearily.
Tas dashed off, his sharp eyes scouring the gray, slimy ground, rather glad to have something to do
and not to have to answer questions about stupid cleared-off spaces. He soon found what he was
looking for-the end of a tree branch sticking up through the mud. Catching hold of it, the kender
gave it a yank. His hands slipped off the wet branch, sending him toppling over backward. Getting
up, staring ruefully at the gunk on his blue leggings, the kender tried unsuccessfully to wipe it off.
Then he sighed and grimly took hold of the branch again. This time, he felt it give a little.
"I've almost got it, Caramon!" he reported. "I--"
A most unkenderlike shriek rose above the screaming wind. Caramon looked up in alarm to see
Tas's topknot disappearing into a vast sink hole that had apparently opened up beneath his feet.
"I'm coming, Tas!" Caramon called, stumbling forward. "Hang on!"
But he halted at the sight of Tas crawling back out of the hole. The kender's face was like nothing
Caramon had ever seen. It was ashen, the lips white, the eyes wide and staring.
"Don't come any closer, Caramon," Tas whispered, gesturing him away with a small, muddy hand.
"Please, stay back!"
But it was too late. Caramon had reached the edge of the hole and was staring down. Tas, crouched
beside him on the ground, began to shake and sob. "They're all dead," he whimpered. "All dead."
Burying his face in his arms, he rocked back and forth, weeping bitterly.
At the bottom of the rock-lined hole that had been covered by a thick layer of mud lay bodies, piles
of bodies, bodies of men, women, children. Preserved by the mud, some were still pitifully
recognizable-or so it seemed to Caramon's feverish gaze. His thoughts went to the last mass grave
he had seen the plague village Crysania had found. He remembered his brother's angry, grief-
stricken face. He remembered Raistlin calling down the lightning, burning everything, burning the
village to ash.
Gritting his teeth, Caramon forced himself to look into that grave-forced himself to look for a mass
of red curls.... He turned away with a shuddering sob of relief, then, looking around wildly, he
began to run back toward the Inn. "Tika!" he screamed.
Tas raised his head, springing up in alarm. "Caramon!" he cried, slipped in the mud, and fell.
"Tika!" Caramon yelled hoarsely above the howl of the wind and the distant thunder. Apparently