"P. N. Elrod - Ravenloft - I, Strahd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

in influencing my work.
 Prologue
Though it was a bright, hot dawn outside,
there were no windows in this part of the
castle. Van Richten had to provide his own
light in the form of a small lantern, which
he gripped with a white-knuckled fist. He
paused on the last, rough-hewn step at the
top of the spiral staircase, caught his
breath, and held the lantern as high as his
slight stature allowed. Its feeble glow only
managed to push back the darkness for a
scant few yards, just enough for him to see
that the room was apparently empty of
threatening occupants. That fact, of course,
meant nothing in this place.
He glanced back the way he'd come. Cold
stone walls curved sharply down into utter
blackness, utter silence. The fingertips of
his left hand, which had brushed against
the walls as he'd gone up, were still numb
from the chill, as if the rock itself had
sucked the warmth right out of them. With
a thin but rueful smile that tugged at only
one corner of his mouth, he flexed his stiff
hand. Like master, like castle, he thought,
then his smile vanished as he turned into
the room.
If not the true heart of the place, the
chamber was certainly a vital organ. Each
high wall was covered with
books—hundreds, thousands of them,
more than Van Richten had seen in one
place in his fifty-odd years of scholarly
life. The yellow glow of his lantern picked
up the sheen from well-oiled leather covers
and gilt titles, the occasional flash of a
gem, and the dull face of a tome so ancient
that no amount of care or restoration could
revitalize it. But the outer shell hardly
mattered; it was what lay inside that was
important.
Van Richten breathed in the books' scent
and felt his heart begin to race a little. If
the monster had a weakness, and they all
did in one form or another, perhaps it
would be found here. As a man might be
judged by the books he reads, so might a
clue be revealed in the neat ranks of titles
that marched up the walls. Van Richten