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

companions. She soon learned to understand - and to speak - their
language, and they gave her much information about Mother Sea and the
many creatures that lived in Mother’s depths and along her shores. Then
by way of recompense, she played music for them on her flute or sang for
them. The dolphins came to enjoy Zelana’s impromptu concerts, and they
invited her to swim with them.
They were much perplexed by a few of Zelana’s peculiarities after she
joined them. So far as they could determine, she never slept, and she
could remain under the surface of Mother Sea almost indefinitely. It also
seemed odd to them that she showed no interest in the schools offish
which swam in the waters around the Isle. Zelana tried to explain to her
friends that sleep and air and food were not necessary for her. Her periods
of sleep and wakefulness were much longer than theirs; she could extract
the essential element of air from the water itself; and she fed on light
rather than on fish or grass. But the dolphins could not quite grasp her
explanation.
 Zelana decided that it might be best to just let it lie.
The man-creatures of the Land of Dhrall knew full well just who - and
what - Zelana was. She held dominion over the West, but there were
others in her family as well. Her elder brother Dahlaine held sway over
the North, and he was grim and bleak. Her younger and sometimes
frivolous brother Veltan controlled the South - when he was not exploring
the moon or contemplating the color blue - and her prim and proper elder
sister Aracia ruled the East as both queen and goddess.
The ages continued their stately march, but Zelana paid them no heed,
for time meant nothing to her. Then one day her dearest friend, a
matronly pink dolphin named Meeleamee, surfaced near the place where
Zelana sat cross-legged on the face of Mother Sea playing her newest
musical composition on her flute. ‘I’ve found something you might want
to see, Beloved,’ Meeleamee announced in her piping voice.
‘Oh?’ Zelana said, setting her flute aside in the emptiness just over her
shoulder where she kept all her possessions.
‘It’s very pretty,’ Meeleamee piped, ‘and it’s exactly the right color.’
‘Why don’t we go have a look then, dear one?’ Zelana replied.
And so together they swam toward the stark cliffs on the southern
margin of the Isle, and as they neared the coast, Meeleamee sounded,
swimming down and down into the depths of Mother Sea. Zelana arched
over and followed, and soon they came to the narrow mouth of an
underwater cavern, and Meeleamee swam on into that cavern with Zelana
close behind.
Now reason and experience told Zelana that this cave should grow
darker as the two of them went deeper and deeper into its twisting
passage, but it grew lighter instead, and the water ahead glowed pink and
warm and friendly, and Meeleamee rose toward the light with Zelana
close behind.
And when they surfaced in the shallow pool at the end of the passage,
Zelana beheld a wonder, for Meeleamee had led her into a grotto unlike
any other Zelana had ever seen. There was a rational explanation, of
course, but mundane rationality could not tarnish the pure beauty of the
hidden grotto. A broad vein of rose-colored quartz crossed the ceiling of