"David Eddings - The Dreamers 02 - The Treasured One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

DAVID AND LEIGH EDDINGS


THE TREASURED ONE

Book Two of The Dreamers
 PREFACE



It was a time of uncertainty in the nest of the Vlagh, for no word of success had yet
reached the nest from the warrior-servants which had followed the burrows below the
face of the ground toward the broad water which lies beneath the sunset.

All had gone as it should at first as the warrior-servants had moved down through
the burrows toward the land of the sunset, killing the man-things of that land as they
went, and the joy of our dear Vlagh had known no bounds, for once the land of the
sunset was ours, there would be much to eat, and the Vlagh which had spawned us all
could spawn still more, and our numbers would grow to beyond counting, and the
overmind of which we are all a part would expand, for it grows larger and more
complex with each new hatch.

Impatient was our Vlagh, for none of its servants of whatever form had yet brought
word of victory, and without that assurance, our Vlagh could not spawn. Though our
Vlagh reached out with its senses toward the land of the sunset to question the
overmind about the success of the warriors of strange form, the overmind did not
respond, and that was most unusual.

And as the days came and went, our Vlagh grew more and more irritable as the
need to spawn was frustrated by the lack of certainty. ‘Go!’ our Vlagh commanded
the warrior-servants which protect the hidden nest. ‘Go and look, and then return and
tell me that which I must know.’

Many warrior-servants of venomous fangs hurried away, and those of us which are
the true servants who care for our Vlagh and the newborns sought to assure our dear
Vlagh that all was as it should be.

But it was not so.

The venomous warriors of strange form returned to report that they could not find
even one of those of our number which had followed the burrows beneath the face of
the ground toward the broad water which lies beneath the sunset, nor had they even
been able to find any trace of those burrows. More horrible still, they had felt no
sense of the overmind in that region.

And the pain of our dear Vlagh knew no bounds, for the over-mind had been
greatly diminished, and it would remain so until the burrowers and the warriors with
venomous fangs were found and their awareness was rejoined with the overmind.

Then there came to the nest of the Vlagh a burrower with missing limbs and deep