"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

The blue-feathered lizard was curled up at his back, and DragonStar leaned back against him
comfortably.
Every so often the lizard snored, and whenever he did, a shaft of light glinted from one of his claws.
DragonStar paid no attention. More than anything else, he wanted to get out and do things, but he
knew — as he'd told his
witches — that he needed experience as well as a thorough knowledge of the Enchanted Song Book
before he could do anything against the Demons.
He opened the leather cover and slowly thumbed through the pages. The Book contained
Songs, music and dance that symbolised the enchantments needed to defeat the Demons. They
would mirror the Demons' own malevolences back to them and destroy them.
"And wipe them from the face of this land and of the universe for ever and ever,"
DragonStar whispered.
He thought about what Axis had told him. Caelum had tried one of these dances atop Star Finger,
but had been consumed almost entirely by the hatred and malevolence the song contained.
DragonStar's fingers traced over a line of music: he could feel the emotion this particular song
contained — envy. He ran his tongue over his top lip, stared at the form and melody of the
song, then swiftly converted it to numbers and then symbols in his mind.
He felt sick with apprehension. Should he try it? See what happened ... Could he control the Song
more than Caelum?
At his back the lizard stirred and sat up.
"Well, my beauty," DragonStar said. "What do you think I should do?"
The lizard yawned, then flexed one of his foreclaws.
"So," DragonStar said, "we try it."
What other choice did he have?
He rose to his feet and put the Book down. As the lizard had just done, DragonStar flexed a hand,
then rose and traced the symbol in the air before him.
The lizard traced it with light.
And Envy filled the Hall.
A wizened old man stood before DragonStar and the lizard. He was twisted and humpbacked, his
limbs stumpy, his hands contorted with arthritis.
He was naked, and his skin was sallow and slick with the sheen of sweat.
Lumps and moles covered his face; his eyes were like narrow slits that saw everything, noting them
all down to be examined in the privacy of disenchanted silence.
He smiled, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth, and horrid thoughts consumed DragonStar's mind.
Caelum had enjoyed it all. He'd had forty years of love, forty years of respect, forty years of
lording it over the peoples of Tencendor. So he'd died horribly — so what? Now he dwelt in the
field of flowers, no doubt enjoying the adulation of everyone else who lived there.
And what was Drago, poor Drago to do. Why! destroy the Demons of course, while
Caelum continued to enjoy himself. He'd had only a few minutes of pain, while Drago had
forty years behind him, and more ahead.
 DragonStar felt such consuming envy ripple through him that he literally growled. He felt his own
back hunch over, and his hands twist into claws. Caelum was nothing but a spoilt bastard who'd had
everything handed to him on a golden platter, while he, he, had to do all the hard work.
The misshapen figure of Envy capered about before him, clapping its hands, and howling with
merriment. "Why don't you visit the Field of Flowers and destroy him forever," he whispered. "You can
do it, you know. You have the power."
The lizard growled, and backed away a few paces.
DragonStar whipped about, raising his hand as if to strike the creature — what had that lizard
ever done but enjoy a free ride? He'd spent aeons as an unfettered spirit in the Sacred Grove, and
then the Minstrelsea forest, and had then simply attached himself to DragonStar's cause with no