"Tad Williams - Memory Sorrow & Thorn 2 - Stone of Farewell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Tad)

friends despite SimonтАЩs mooncalf nature and the doctorтАЩs refusal to teach him anything
resembling magic. During one of his meanderings through the secret byways of the
labyrinthine Hayholt, Simon discovers a secret passage and is almost captured there by
Pryrates. Eluding the priest, he enters a hidden underground chamber and finds Josua, who
is being held captive for use in some terrible ritual planned by Pryrates. Simon fetches
Doctor Morgenes and the two of them free Josua and take him to the doctorтАЩs chambers,
where Josua is sent to freedom down a tunnel that leads beneath the ancient castle. Then,
as Morgenes is sending off messenger birds bearing news of what has happened to
mysterious friends, Pryrates and the kingтАЩs guard come to arrest the doctor and Simon.
Morgenes is killed fighting Pryrates, but his sacrifice allows Simon to escape into the
tunnel.
Half-maddened, Simon makes his way through the midnight corridors beneath the
castle, which contain the ruins of the old Sithi palace. He surfaces in the graveyard beyond
the town wall, then is lured by the light of a bonfire. He witnesses a weird scene: Pryrates
and King Elias engaged in a ritual with black-robed, white-faced creatures. The pale things
give Elias a strange gray sword of disturbing power, named Sorrow. Simon flees.
Life in the wilderness on the edge of the great forest Aldheorte is miserable, and
weeks later Simon is nearly dead from hunger and exhaustion, but still far away from his
destination, JosuaтАЩs northern keep at Naglimund. Going to a forest cot to beg, he finds a
strange being caught in a trap тАУ one of the Sithi, a race thought to be mythical, or at least
long-vanished. The cotsman returns, but before he can kill the helpless Sitha, Simon strikes
him down. The Sitha, once freed, stops only long enough to fire a white arrow at Simon,
then disappears. A new voice tells Simon to take the white arrow, that it is a Sithi gift.
The dwarfish newcomer is a troll named Binabik, who rides a great gray wolf. He tells
Simon he was only passing by, but now he will accompany the boy to Naglimund. Simon
and Binabik endure many adventures and strange events on the way to Naglimund: they
come to realize that they have fallen afoul of a threat greater than merely a king and his
counselor deprived of their prisoner. At last, when they find themselves pursued by
unearthly white hounds who wear the brand of Stormspike, a mountain of evil reputation in
the far north, they are forced to head for the shelter of Gelo├лтАЩs forest house, taking with
them a pair of travelers they have rescued from the hounds. Gelo├л, a blunt-spoken forest
woman with a reputation as a witch, confers with them and agrees that somehow the
ancient Norns, embittered relatives of the Sithi, have become embroiled in the fate of
Prester JohnтАЩs kingdom.
Pursuers human and otherwise threaten them on their journey to Naglimund. After
Binabik is shot with an arrow, Simon and one of the rescued travelers, a servant girl, must
struggle on through the forest. They are attacked by a shaggy giant and saved only by the
appearance of JosuaтАЩs hunting party.
The prince brings them to Naglimund, where BinabikтАЩs wounds are cared for, and
where it is confirmed that Simon has stumbled into a terrifying swirl of events. Elias is
coming soon to besiege JosuaтАЩs castle. SimonтАЩs serving-girl companion was Princess
Miriamele traveling in disguise, fleeing her father, whom she fears has gone mad under
PryratesтАЩ influence. From all over the north and elsewhere, frightened people are flocking
to Naglimund and Josua, their last protection against a mad king.
Then, as the prince and others discuss the coming battle, a strange old Rimmersman
named Jarnauga appears in the councilтАЩs meeting hall. He is a member of the League of
the Scroll, a circle of scholars and initiates of which Morgenes and BinabikтАЩs master were
both part, and he brings more grim news. Their enemy, he says, is not just Elias: the king is
receiving aid from Ineluki the Storm King, who had once been a prince of the Sithi тАУ but
who has been dead for five centuries, and whose bodiless spirit now rules the Norns of