"Paul Edwin Zimmer - A Gathering of Heros" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zimmer Paul Edwin)

rights protected by the Elf-Folk. Leaves rustled in the wind, and faint music and laughter sounded in the
trees. A bright-eyed, delicate face glanced briefly from the branches above the road. Elf-lights glimmered
among the leaves.
Earth reared up in a sudden wall before him, while the road dived into a well-lit tunnel, iron gates ajar.
Dwarf soldiers in gleaming mail leaned on broad axes. Their eyes moved over him quickly; they saw the
Hastur-blade at his side, and nodded. He left Elthar behind, and rode east on the broad road that led to
the mountain land of Tumbalia, at the edge of the Forest of Demons.
Tiny moons hurtled between the stars: shadows around him shifted and changed. His horse was nervous
and his sword-hand tense, although he knew it was seldom any Night-Thing dared come so close to
Elthar. This was elvish country, and their eyes would be upon him.
He pondered Aldamir's words. It was true, perhaps, that-he had some talent for coming through battles



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alive, and he did bear a Hastur-blade.
But it still did not make sense. He had grown up at the feet of the Mountains of the Clouds, where
Hastur's fortress of Carcosa rises amid eternal snow, and he knew well the power of its Immortal
dwellers. The thought of the Hasturs asking anyone's aid was not comforting.
The big moon, Domri, rose like a huge white mountain from the horizon, and by its wan light he saw the
slopes of Nockarv hill a pallid green. It was still an hour or more before midnight. He rode toward the
window lights that clustered in the hill's shadow.
He came to the crossroads, and trotted across the broad highway that stretched across the long miles
from Cpiranor and the Dwarf Kingdom, south beyond Elantir. He had never ridden that way, although he
had ridden north on that road, to the realm of the Two Kings in Galinor. He hhd been little more than a
boy, then, serving with Cousin ftaquel in old Belos Robardin's company. The Two Kings had*hired them
to drive back an invasion from Sarlow . . .
A GATHERING OF HEROES 5
So long ago! He reined his horse before the gigantic, earth-brown inn, its peaked and gabled roof like a
range of triangular mountains against the moon-filled sky. Four smaller buildings stood dark, but the
windows before him blazed with light.
Domri climbed free of the horizon, floating like some gigantic pearl, dwarfing lesser moons to mere
sparks. The sight took Istvan back to his childhood in a surge of emotion: the big moon had not been
visible from the continent since his youth, and would not rise there again for more than twenty years. He
might well be long dead by then.
Two harried-looking small boys with excited, grimy faces, were dashing about outside the door, trying to
tend what seemed a herd of horses: more than a dozen were still tied under the painted silver axe, though
the boys led them to the stables by twos and threes.
Dismounting, Istvan wrapped his reins around the hitching post, and then, after a moment's thought,
pulled his shield and the heavy bag that held helmet and tight-rolled mail-shirt from the saddle. He tossed
a coin glittering through torchlight into a grubby urchin's hand. Stepping up the stairs to face the richly
carved old brown door, he heard behind him high boys' voices.
"Where's he from? Never saw no one like that!" "From over the Western Sea. A Seynyorean he is, from
Hastur's Mountain!" Awe in the voice reminded Istvan that here he was the wonder, from tfie world's
other side.
The curlicues and spirals and legendary heroes on the story-carved oak door swung back from his touch,
opening on a booming noise of men's voices and laughter, and a glare of firelight.