"Dave Duncan - A Man Of His Word 2 - Faery Lands Forlorn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Dave)

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but headed instead to the southeast, weaving between bijou divans and
tables and grotesque carvings, until she came to a large mirror hung on
the wall. It was oval, bound in an intricate silver frame depicting
leaves and hands and numerous other shapes, all vaguely sinister. Even
the reflections seemed oddly distorted.

Inos stared in horror at the two images she saw there, shadowed and dim.
She was a fright-face livid, eyes staring, honey hair awry, looking for
all the world like flotsam washed up on a rock. Rasha, meanwhile, seemed
as fair and regal as everyone's ideal of motherhood. She was observing
Inos's reaction with cool disdain.

Then she frowned, as if in concentration. The twin reflections faded and
the glass darkened. Shapes moved within it. Inos gasped at this new
sorcery, seeing the mists coalesce into the forms of imp legionaries.
Soon she recognized the chamber at the top of Inisso's Tower, dimly
lighted, with snow swirling beyond the panes and settling on the
leading. She could make out the shattered door, and the throng of
soldiers milling around in the thin gray light. There was no sound, only
the vision in the glass.

"See?" the sorceress muttered. "No sign of your lover."

"He was not that! Merely a loyal subject!"

"Hah! He'd have been slobbering all over you as soon as he got the
chance. They all do. But I don't see the goblin, either; nor one of the
set. "

Inos blinked tears from her eyes.

"And look here!" Rasha said. The scene lurched sideways and steadied
again. Several of the legionaries were leaning out the great south
casement, staring down. "Either they had the sense to jump," Rasha said,
"or they just got thrown. Thrown, I expect."

The scene blurred as the tears won over the blinking.

Rap and Aunt Kade-only two of her father's subjects had stayed loyal to
Inos. And now there was only Kade.

3

Eastward, a faint glow rising from the sea was washing the stars from
the sky, playing on waves that rolled in monotonously from the dark to
lap a beach already shining like hammered silver. Westward, behind Rap,
the jungle was wakening into carillons of birdsong. He had never heard
melody like that.