"David Eddings - The Legacy Of The Drow II - Starless Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

“Enough!” she shouted.
“And enough of your games!” Jarlaxle spat back. “You asked that I come to the Academy, a place where I
am not comfortable, and so I have come. You have questions, and I, perhaps, have answers.”
His qualification of that last sentence made Triel narrow her eyes. Jarlaxle was ever a cagey opponent, she
knew as well as any one in the drow city. She had dealt with the cunning mercenary many times and still
wasn’t quite sure if she had broken even against him or not. She turned and motioned for him to enter the
left hand door instead, and, with another graceful bow, he did so, stepping into a thickly carpeted and
decorated room lit in a soft magical glow.
“Remove your boots, ” Triel instructed, and she slipped out of her own shoes before she stepped onto the
plush rug.
Jarlaxle stood against the tapestry adorned wall just inside the door, looking doubtfully at his boots.
Everyone who knew the mercenary knew that these were magical.
“Very well, ” Triel conceded, closing the door and sweeping past him to take a seat on a huge, overstuffed
chair. A rolltop desk stood behind her, in front of one of many tapestries, this one depicting the sacrifice of a
gigantic surface elf by a horde of dancing drow. Above the surface elf loomed the nearly translucent specter
of a half drow,
half spider creature, its face beautiful and serene. “You do not like your mother’s lights?” Jarlaxle asked.
“You
keep your own room aglow.”
Triel bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes once more. Most priestesses kept their private chambers dimly
lit; that they might read their tomes. Heat sensing infravision was of little use in seeing the runes on a page.
There were some inks that would hold distinctive heat for many years, but these were expensive and hard to
come by, even for one as powerful as Triel. Jarlaxle stared back at the Baenre daughter’s grim expression.
Triel was always mad about something, the mercenary mused. “The lights seem appropriate for what your
mother has planned, ” he
went on.
“Indeed, ” Triel remarked, her tone biting. “And are you so arrogant as to believe that you understand my
mother’s motives?”
“She will go back to Mithril Hall, ” Jarlaxle said openly, knowing that Triel had long ago drawn the same
conclusion.
“Will she?” Triel asked coyly. The cryptic response set the mercenary back on his heels. Hetook a step
toward a second, less cushiony chair in the room, and his heel clicked hard, even though he was walking
across the incredibly thick and soft carpet. Triel smirked, not impressed by the magical boots. It was
common knowledge that Jarlaxle could walk as quietly or as loudly as he desired on any type of surface. His
abundant jewelry, bracelets
and trinkets seemed equally enchanted, for they would ring and tinkle or remain perfectly silent, as the
mercenary desired.
“If you have left a hole in my carpet, I will fill it with your heart, ” Triel promised as Jarlaxle slumped back
comfortably in the covered stone chair, smoothing a fold in the armrest so that the fabric showed a clear
image of a black and yellow gee’antu spider, the Underdark’s version of the surface tarantula.
“Why do you suspect that your mother will not go?” Jarlaxle asked, pointedly ignoring the threat, though in
knowing Triel Baenre, he honestly wondered how many other hearts were now entwined in the carpet’s
fibers.
“Do I?” Triel asked. Jarlaxle let out a long sigh. He had suspected that this would be a moot meeting, a
discussion where Triel tried to pry out what bits of information the mercenary already had attained, while
offering little of her own. Still, when Triel had insisted that Jarlaxle come to her, instead of their usual
arrangement, in which she went out from Tier Breche to meet the mercenary, Jarlaxle had hoped for
something substantive. It was quickly becoming obvious to Jarlaxle that the only reason Triel wanted to
meet in Arach Tinilith was that, in this secure place, even her mother’s prying ears would not hear. And
now, for all those painstaking arrangements, this all