"Anne Bishop - Black Jewels 00 - The Invisible Ring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bishop Anne)

ensnare a man and leave him locked in an endless nightmare. She was also the
Red-Jeweled High Priestess of Hayll. Since there were no Queens in the
Hayllian Territory who could match the psychic strength that Jewel
signified, and since no weaker Queen who wanted to stay whole and healthy
challenged her authority, Dorothea ruled as she pleased-which was something
no male in Hayll dared to forget.
"Have you seen your predecessor lately?" Dorothea purred as she swished past
him. Her coquettish smile didn't match the vicious pleasure in her gold
eyes.
"Yes, Priestess," Krelis replied, trying to keep his voice neutral. When he
and a troop of men had gone into the slums of Draega, Hayll's capital, to
round up some of the dregs for expendable labor, he had seen his former
commander stumbling out of a filthy alleyway. The former Master of the Guard
was now a maimed, tortured mockery of the man he'd been. Worse, his inner
web, that intimate core of Self that made the Blood who and what they were,
had been shattered so that he could no longer wear the Jewels, could do no
more than basic Craft, if even that. The keen tactical mind that had
protected Dorothea for so many decades had been split open like a melon and
scraped clean. But not completely. If the haunted eyes in the scarred face
were any indication, enough thought had been left for him to remember what
he had been. And who had done this to him. Dorothea swished past Krelis
again. Sweat beaded his forehead as he blanked his mind and prayed to the
Darkness that she wouldn't sense anything that would make her want to open
his inner barriers and sample his thoughts.
"I gave your predecessor an important task, and he failed me." Stopping in
front of him, Dorothea smiled as she brushed the feather against his cheek.
"Now he belongs to the Brotherhood of the Quill."
Krelis shuddered. Mother Night! To be shaved of all the organs that made a
man a man. To need one of those large quills to ...
"Are you going to fail me?" Dorothea purred, leaning close to him.
"No, Priestess," Krelis stammered. "Tell me what you wish of me, and I'll do
it."
"A wise man." She tickled his lips with the feather before turning away.
"You know of the Gray Lady?"
Had he failed already? Oh, he'd heard vague whispers a few months ago, but
he'd still been a Third Circle guard at the time-and commanders weren't in
the habit of telling their men more than was necessary. Feeling sick, he
swallowed hard, and managed to whisper, "No, Priestess."
Dorothea flashed a malicious, amused look at him before resuming her
leisurely pacing. "She's a dangerous enemy, a Gray-Jeweled Queen who rules
the Territory called Dena Nehele on the other side of the Tamanara
Mountains. She's been a thorn in my side since she set up her court forty
years ago, and she continues to fight my attempts to bring the Realm of
Terreille under the beneficent guidance of Hayll."
Krelis said hesitantly, "Since she's not from one of the long-lived races,
surely she must be old by now."
"But still strong," Dorothea snapped. "As long as she continues to live,
Dena Nehele will be able to resist being drawn into Hayll's shadow, and the
Territories bordering it will be strengthened by that resistance. Even if
she died tomorrow, it would still take at least one of their generations to