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

advisers. The brothers' feud is a cloud of foreboding over castle and
country.

Elias' reign as king starts well. but a drought comes and plague strikes
several of the nations of Osten Ard. Soon outlaws roam the roads and
people begin to vanish from isolated villages. The order of things is
breaking down, and the king's subjects are losing confidence in his rule,
but nothing seems to bother the monarch or his friends. As rumblings of
discontent begin to be heard throughout the kingdom, Elias' brother Josua
disappearsЧto plot rebellion, some say.

Xll

Tad Williams

Ellas' misrule upsets many, including Duke Isyimnur of Rimmersgard
and Count Eolair, an emissary from the western country of Hernystir.
Even King Elias' own daughter Miriamele is uneasy, especially about the
scarlet-robed Pryratcs, her father's trusted adviser.

Meanwhile Simon is muddling along as Morgcncs' helper. The two
become fast friends despite Simon's mooncalf nature and the doctor's
refusal to teach him anything resembling magic. During one of his mean-
dcrings through the secret byways of the labyrinthine Hayholt, Simon
discovers a secret passage and is almost captured there by Pryratcs. Elud-
ing 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 Morgcnes and the two of them free Josua
and take him to the doctor's 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 myste-
rious friends, Pryrates and the king's 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 Sorrou'. 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 exhaus-
tion, but still far away from his destination, Josua's northern keep at
Naglimund. Going to a forest cot to beg, he finds a strange being caught
in a trapЧone 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