"Gordon R. Dickson - Dragon Knight 04 - The Dragon At War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

blue of his eyes. They were eyes which irresistibly reminded Jim of the greatest depths of sea water at
which he had ever gazed, with sunlight glancing off it.
Surprisingly, Rrrnlf did not seem at all startled by Jim’s sudden growth.
“Ah. A wee mage!” he said.
His voice still boomed. But now it did not seem to have the thunderous quality that Jim had thought he
had heard in it, while listening to Rrrnlf from his own normal height above the ground. The other went on.
“Well met. Mage!” said Rrrnlf. “Fear not. I know magic and those who do it.”
He beamed at Jim.
“-A great luck meeting you!” His voice was jubilant. “A mage is the very one to aid me. It happens I’m
in search of a foul robber, whose limbs I will tear from his body when I find him; leaving him to wriggle in
the sea mud like the worm he is! Only, use your magic and tell me where to find him.”
“I’m afraid,” said Jim, “my magic’s not that good yet. I’m just starting out as a magician. I’m sorry to
hear you’ve been robbed, though-“
“Most foully and unfairly robbed!” burst out Rrrnlf, suddenly looking very dangerous. “My Lady taken
from me!”
“Your Lady?” said Jim. He tried to imagine a female equivalent of Rnrnlf, but his mind boggled at the
idea. “You mean-your wife?”
“Wife? Never that!” boomed Rrrnlf. “What does a Sea Devil need with a wife? This was a Lady I took
from a sunken ship-from the prow of a sunken ship; and was the image of my own lost love. A most fair
Lady, with golden hair and a trident in one little hand. She had been fixed to a ship sunk some time past.
I broke her free and took her to safety. For the last fifteen hundred years I have gilded and adorned her
with gems. But now she is stolen—and I know by who. It was one of the sea serpents! Aye, a wicked
sea serpent, who envied me her; and stole her away when I wasn’t there, to keep in his own hoard!”
Jim’s head spun. It was bad enough to try to imagine a female Sea Devil. It was infinitely worse to juggle
all the information thrown at him in Rrrnlf’s last words. He knew of the existence of sea serpents. The
granduncle of the dragon in whose body he had found himself, when he had first landed in this time and
world, had told him once of a dragon ancestor who had once slain a sea serpent in single combat.
He tried to think of the name of both the ancestor and the sea serpent. He found he could not remember
any name for the serpent-perhaps he had not been told any-but the name of his dragon ancestor had
been Gleingul. According to his dragon granduncle, what Gleingul had done in winning a one-on-one
fight with the sea serpent had been something like the equivalent of the original St. George slaying the
original dragon.
Just why Gleingul and the serpent had been fighting had never been explained to him. But if sea serpents
were something like undersea dragons, in that they believed in accumulating hoards of gold and gems,
what Rrrnlf was saying made sense.
“I see,” he said, after a moment, “but I’m afraid I can’t help you. I haven’t seen any sea serpents around
here-“
“You have already helped me by giving me the direction of the sea!” said Rrrnlf. “I shall return to my
search now; and- fear not-I will find him. Granfer said that for some reason the sea serpents were all
headed toward this isle. The one I seek may have sought to hide underground on this island; though they
like not fresh water and avoid it by any means. We Sea Devils care not whether water be salt or
fresh-or even that we stand in open air as now I do. So, I bid you farewell. I’m in your debt, wee mage.
Call on me if ever you need me.”
With that he turned about, stepped back into the lake and strode toward the middle of it, the water
swallowing him up vertically as it grew deeper. Jim suddenly thought of something.
“But how would I find you?” Jim called after him.
Rrrnlf looked back over his shoulder briefly.
“Call for me at the seashore!” he boomed back. “Even a wee man should know that much. Send your
message by the surf. I shall hear!”
“But... what if you’re on the other side of the world?” called Jim. Living in this fourteenth-century society