"David Eddings - The Dreamers 01 - The Elder gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

She settled quietly onto the water and tiptoed closer. The floating
object was obviously more advanced than anything the people of Dhrall
could build, but it had probably been constructed for the same reason that
the people of Dhrall made canoes. The outlanders were most likely
fishermen. The pink dolphins of the Isle of Thurn ate fish, and Eleria had
said that fish tasted quite pleasant - as long as they were fresh.
The oversized canoe Zelana had found was very large, long and
narrow, and the outlanders had even built low-roofed houses on it to
shelter them when the weather went bad. For some reason, they’d seen fit
to put a large tree-trunk in the center. As Zelana approached, she noticed
that there was a distinctly unpleasant odor hanging over the entire canoe.
Then a couple of man-creatures with hairy faces came out of the low,
flat-roofed structure near the back of the alien canoe. They were both
very tall and muscular, and their clothing was an odd mix of cloth and
leather. They also had what appeared to be weapons of some sort belted
to their waists, and that aroused Zelana’s immediate attention. If these
man-things were merely fishermen, they wouldn’t need to carry weapons
all the time. That strongly suggested that these two weren’t out here on
the face of Mother Sea looking for fish. Zelana stepped back out of the
light and adjusted her hearing as Veltan had suggested to make the speech
of the outlanders understandable.
‘Looks to be a fair night, Cap’n,’ one of the creatures was saying.
‘Aye,’ the other rumbled in a harsh voice, ‘and it’s none too soon to
suit me. I’ve had me a belly-full of foul weather here lately.’
Zelana was a bit surprised to discover that Veltan’s theory actually
worked the way he’d said it would. Veltan’s experiments seldom turned
out exactly the way he wanted them to. She was having no trouble
understanding these two outlanders, though.
‘You’d better get a look-out aloft, Ox,’ the one called Cap’n suggested.
‘Now that the weather’s settled down, other ships might be underway
hereabouts. We’re not sailing the Seagull out here for entertainment, you
know.’
‘Aye, Cap’n,’ the huge one called Ox replied. ‘The Trogite vessels
usually hug the coast, but the storm might have swept a few of them out
here to deeper water. If our luck’s running good, we might be able to
harvest a fair amount of Trogite gold while they’re still floundering
around out of sight of land.’
‘You’re starting to think like a real Maag, Ox,’ Cap’n said with an evil
grin. ‘The notion of picking Trogite vessels like apples off a tree lights a
warm fire in my belly. Come morning, put the crew to work patching the
sails and clearing away the wreckage that storm made out of most of the
rigging. It well-nigh drove us under a few times.’


Zelana sat cross-legged on the surface of Mother Sea considering some
interesting possibilities. The two outlanders, Ox and Cap’n, had referred
to their canoe as ‘a ship’, and there were obviously other ships in the
vicinity as well. It was fairly clear that these man-creatures who called
themselves ‘Maags’ were not out on the face of Mother Sea in search
offish. Evidently they searched for the ships of other outlanders in order