"Denning, Troy - Forgotten Realms - Realms of the Underdark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Denning Troy)

Like a wraith, he plunged deeper into the Dark.
Dominion, the wild region beyond the borders of the underground city. His ebon skin and black rothe-hide garments merged with the dusky air, and he had concealed his shock of bone-white hair beneath the deep hood of hispiwafwi, his magic-tinged cloak. Only the faint red glow of his eyes-eyes that required no light to see, but only the countless gradations of heat radiated by stone and flesh and all things in between- might have belied that it was not a dark breath of air that moved down the passage, but a living being.
Zak cocked his head, pointed ears listening for the first telltale sounds. He had now passed beyond the farthest reach of the patrols-those merciless troops of dark-elf soldiers and wizards that kept the tunnels around Menzoberranzan free of monsters. Anything might lie beyond the next bend of stone, any one of those thousand waiting horrors. Yes, death could be found in endless variety in the Underdark. But what did he have to fear? Zaknafein laughed without sound, his white teeth shining in the darkness. Were not the draw the greatest horror of all?
He moved on.
Minutes later Zak came upon his prey: a band of pale, bug-eyed kobolds. Until that moment, he had not known he was hunting the stunted, dog-snouted creatures. It might have been bugbears, or deepspawn, or black crawlers, or any one of a score of different monsters. It made no difference. All that mattered was that they were evil. He had come upon the kobolds first. They would serve him well enough.
The ragged creatures huddled in a small cave, pawing over the spoils of their latest victim. Zak's red eyes detected the cold metallic outline of a horned helm and a stout warhammer. A dwarf. Dwarves were fierce fighters, and kobolds were cowardly creatures, but a dozen of them would not hesitate to swarm a lone wanderer. No doubt the dwarf had had the ill luck to find himself alone and too far from the underground home of his clan. Tufts of hair matted with blood still clung to the armor and weapons. The kobolds had jumped him and ripped him to shreds.
"Mine!" one of the creatures shrieked in the crude common tongue of the Underdark, its eyes glowing with lust. It snatched a cloak of fine cloth from one of the others, clutching it in grimy hands.
"Mine, it is!" the other kobold growled. "I it was who bit its filthy neck!"
"No, mine!" hissed a third. "Gouged its foul, sticky eyes with my own fingers, I did!"
The two hateful contenders tackled the first creature, snarling and biting with yellow teeth, tearing the cloak to tatters in the process. Quarrels broke out among the rest of the kobolds as they fought over the dead dwarfs goods. Zak knew he had to act now if there was to be any work left for him to do. Tossing back his concealing piwafwi, he stepped into the cave.
"Why don't I settle this little argument for you?" he asked in a ringing voice. A fierce grin split his angular visage. "How about if you all get-nothing?"
The kobolds froze, staring at the drow weapons master in surprise and dread, bits of cloth and jewelry dropping from their bloodstained fingers. Then, as one, the diminutive creatures shrieked in terror, scrambling and clawing past each other to escape the nightmare before them. There was nothing in all the Underdark that kobolds feared more than drow. For good reason.
With one hand, Zak drew his adamantite sword, while the other uncoiled the whip from his belt. In an almost lazy gesture, he flicked his wrist. The whip struck like a black serpent, taking the feet out from under the nearest kobold. His sword followed. Like a dying insect, the kobold squirmed for a moment on the end of his blade. Then Zak heaved the creature aside, turning toward the next. Kobolds were like candy. He could never kill just one.
Zaknafein's grin broadened as he cut a swath through the shrieking tangle. He was slender, like all elven kind, but his lithe form was as sharp and well-honed as his blade. In a city of warriors, Zak knew he was one of the best. It was not a matter of pride. It was simply fact.
Another kobold expired on the end of his sword, the evil phosphorescence of life fading from its eyes until they were as cool and dull as stones. Even as one hand wrested the blade from the dead creature, the other lashed out with the whip. Supple leather coiled around a fleeing kobold's neck, stopping it in its tracks. The thing clutched at its throat, fingers scrabbling in vain. . Zak gave the whip an expert tug, snapping the creature's neck.
Excitement surged in his chest. Zaknafein had been alive for nearly four hundred years, and he had spent almost all of those years mastering the art of battle. This was his calling. This was what he had been born to do.
Zak spun and danced easily through the writhing throng of kobplds, falling now into the trancelike rhythm of the fray. When killing things of evil, he felt a clarity he did not know at other times. Unlike anything else in the tangled and devious world of the dark elves, this made sense to him. In Menzoberranzan, all life revolved around station. Each of the noble houses in the city was caught in a never-ending game of intrigue, alliance, and treachery. All of it served one goal: to win the favor of the dark goddess Lloth. Those who gained the blessing of the Spider Queen knew great power and prosperity, while those who earned her displeasure found only destruction and death. To Zak, climbing Lloth's Ladder was a pointless exercise. No family stayed in Lloth's favor forever. Each was doomed to fall eventually. He wanted no part of that meaningless game. The machinations, the deceits, the shadowed plots: all were beyond him. But this-another kobold died screaming under the swing of his blade-this he understood. Zak blinked.
The small cavern had fallen silent, save for the piteous whining of a single kobold that cowered before him. All the rest of the evil creatures were dead. Veins thrumming with exhilaration, Zak raised his adamantite sword to finish what he had begun.
That was when he saw it. It dangled from a silvery thread not five paces away and watched him with eyes like black, many-faceted jewels. A spider.
The sword halted in its descent. Zak stared at the arachnid. It was only an ordinary rock spider, no larger than the palm of his hand. But all spiders were sacred to Lloth. And all were her servants. The metallic taste of disgust spread across his tongue. He had slain the kobolds for himself, to quell his own needs. But the act served Lloth as well, did it not? The kobolds were the enemy of the drow, of her children. Their deaths could only please her.
His lips pulled back, transforming his grin into an expression of loathing. He turned away from the last kobold, and the creature squealed in surprise, thinking it had somehow escaped its worst nightmare. Without even looking, Zak thrust the blade backward, silencing the creature, ending its false hope. But there was no pleasure in the act. Not now. He glared at the spider, fingered the handle of his whip, and knew he could crush it with a single flick. But even he dared not harm one of Lloth's messengers. He let his hand fall from the weapon.
A gloom settled over him, even darker and more stifling than the oppressive air of the Underdark. After reluctantly harvesting the expected trophies, he started back toward the city of the drow.
By the time he reached the edge of the vast underground cavern that housed Menzoberranzan, his gloom had deepened into despair. Sitting astride the broad back of his lizard mount, he gazed over the dwelling of the dark elves-his home, and yet not his home. Long ago, the legends told, the dark elves had lived in the overworld. They had dwelt along with their fair sylvan kindred, with no comforting roof of stone above them but only a vast emptiness called sky. As out of place as Zak felt among his people, the thought of living on the surface chilled his blood. So changed were the drow after dwelling for eons in the realms below that they could never live in the overworld again. They were creatures of the dark now. Lloth had seen to that. She had made them what they were, and for that he hated her.
Zak let his gaze wander over the eerie cityscape before him. Pale faerie fire, conjured by the wizards of the various houses, revealed the fantastic shapes into which the cavern's gigantic stalagmites and stalactites had been hewn. Slender bridges leapt impossibly between the stone spires. In the five thousand years during which the dark elves had dwelt in this place, not a single surface had been left untouched. Every piece of stone had been carved and polished and shaped to suit the needs of the drow. Everything that was, except for Narbondel.
The rugged pillar of stone stood, as it had for millennia, in the center of the great cavern. Here in the unending dark, where there was no alternation of day and night to mark time, Narbondel served as the city's clock. Once each day, Menzoberranzan's archmage cast a spell of fire upon the base of the pillar. Throughout the day the enchanted fire rose, until the entire column glowed with the heat of it, before finally fading into cool darkness - the Black Death of Narbondel - upon which the cycle was begun anew.
Despite the magical fires that were cast upon it, each day Narbondel fell black again. Darkness always won in the end. Zak shook his head. Perhaps he was a fool to think he was different from the rest of his cruel and capricious kindred. He killed only creatures of evil, but it was the killing itself he craved, was it not? Maybe he was no different at all. That was, perhaps, his deepest fear.
A faint humming sound broke his grim reverie. Something twitched against his throat. He reached into his neck-purse and pulled out the insignia of House Do'Urden. The adamantite disk was engraved with a spider that wielded a different weapon in each of its eight appendages. The coin glowed with silver light and was warm against his hand. It was a summons. Matron Mother Malice, leader of House Do'Urden, required the presence of her weapons master.
For a moment, Zaknafein gazed into the darkness behind him. He half considered plunging back into the Dark Dominion and leaving the city forever. The chance that a lone drow could survive in the Underdark was slim. But there was a chance. And he could be free.
The metallic disk twitched again on his palm, the heat growing uncomfortable. Zak sighed. Thoughts of fleeing evaporated. He belonged in the Underdark even less than he did here. Like it or not, this was his home. He nudged his lizard mount into a swift, swaying walk, heading through an arched gate into the city of the drow.
One did not keep one's matron mother waiting.

Chapter Two
Matron Mother
"Where is he?" Matron Mother Malice of House Do'Urden demanded in a voice sharp with impatience.
She paced with perilous grace before the adamantite railing that separated the compound's private upper chambers from the common levels below, her dark gown flowing behind her like shadows. The other nobles of the house-her five living children, along with her current patron, Rizzen-watched from a prudent distance. None dared cross the path of her ire.
Malice muttered a curse under her breath. There was no doubt Zaknafein was the finest weapons master in the city, but that gave her little advantage if she could not control him. A servant-especially a male servant-did not make his matron wait. Several years ago, she had revoked Zak's position as patron and had taken Rizzen in his stead, thinking that would show him the consequences of displeasing her. In the time since, though, he had become only more willful and unmanageable. Malice was growing weary of being embarrassed by Zaknafein. Useful as he was to her, she would not tolerate it much longer.
"Let me deal with Zaknafein when he returns, Matron Malice," offered Briza, Malice's eldest daughter. Unlike her lithe mother, Briza was a big-boned and round-shouldered elf. Recently anointed a high priestess of Lloth, she enjoyed wielding her new authority. "Males are not as intelligent as the rest of us. There is only one sort of instruction they understand." With fond fingers, she touched the writhing, snake-headed whip at her belt. The half-dozen snake heads hissed in anticipation.
"If I have wronged Matron Mother Malice, then punishment is hers to mete out, not yours, Briza Do'Urden."
All turned to see a feral form step out of midair and float over the adamantite railing. Zaknafein drifted to the floor before Malice, waving a hand to end the levitation spell of which all highborn drow are capable-a fact that accounted for the lack of stairs leading to the upper level of the house. Briza glared daggers at the weapons master but held her tongue. All knew that his rebuke had been correct, and that she had overstepped her bounds in her eagerness to punish him.
Malice folded her arms over her breasts, her expression cold. "I do not like waiting, Zaknafein. Tell me quickly why I should not give you to Briza and her whip."
"There is no reason, Matron Mother," Zaknafein replied, bowing his head and assuming a submissive posture before her. "But allow me to present you with these before you do what you will."
He laid a grisly bundle at her feet-a dozen hairy kobold ears bound together with twine. Malice raised a single eyebrow, impressed despite her anger. Kobolds were wretched creatures, but they were vicious when cornered, and slaying a dozen alone was no mean feat. Such an act could only please Lloth.
She felt her anger receding. The gift was a good one, and Zaknafein was now acting suitably repentant. Perhaps his punishment should be to come to her bedchamber and serve her there. She knew she should resist the temptation. Zak needed to know how he had displeased her. And yet... She glanced at Rizzen. Her current patron was handsome, yes, but so docile, so pliant, so utterly dull. Maybe it was her lack of control over Zak that made him desirable. Danger could be ever so alluring.
Whatever her decision would be, Malice decided to save it for later. Zaknafein's offering had mollified her for the moment. Besides, there were more important matters to attend.
Malice rested her pointed chin on the back of her hand, her dark eyes glinting. "You and I will consider the matter of your punishment later, Zaknafein. Alone."
At that last word, an expression of surprise crossed Briza's broad face. Rizzen shot Zaknafein an open look of hatred, then remembered himself and averted his gaze, lest he attract his matron mother's wrath. Zaknafein only gave an emotionless nod.
Satisfied the matter was resolved, Malice decided it was time to tell the others why she had gathered them together. "I have concocted a plan," she announced in a bold voice. "A plan that, if it succeeds, will bring the favor of Lloth upon House Do'Urden.
Vierna and Maya, Briza's younger sisters, exchanged puzzled looks.
"But do we not already enjoy the favor of the Spider Queen?" Vierna asked in a tentative voice.
Maya's tone was more confident. "After all, we are Ninth House of Menzoberranzan now."