"02 - Rise of a Merchant Prince" - читать интересную книгу автора (Feist Raymond E)

lifeless. It studied the jar it held for a moment, its only possession.
This soul was especially active and the demon had been fortunate
to find it and keep it. Placing the jar under its chin, the
demon closed its eyes and felt the energy flow into it from the jar.
The creature's emotional makeup knew nothing that could be
called happiness, only lessened states of fear or anger, but the
surge of feeling within was as close to happiness as the creature
could know. Each time the soul within the jar struggled, the energy
created filled the little demon's mind with new ideas.
As if suddenly concerned its toy would be taken from it by one
of its more powerful brethren, the demon glanced around. The
hall was one of many in the grand palace of Cibul, capital of the
now destroyed Saaur race.
Then the demon remembered: destroyed save those who had
fled through a magic gate. It felt its anger return, and then the
emotion quickly fled. As a minor demon, it was not intelligent,
only cunning, and it didn't fully understand why the escape of a
small part of this nearly obliterated race was important. But it was,
for the Demon Lords were even now gathered upon the plains to
the east of the city of Cibul, inspecting the site of the now closed
rift through which the Saaur survivors had fled.
The Lords of the Fifth Circle had attempted once to open the

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Raymond E. Feist

portal, managing to keep it open long enough to slip a tiny demon
through, before it collapsed upon itself, sealing the rift between the two
realms and stranding the tiny demon on the other side of the rift. There
was much consultation among the greater demons on reopening that
rift and gaining entrance to this new realm.

The demon wandered the halls, oblivious to the ravages around it.
Tapestries that had taken a generation to weave were torn from the
walls and trodden upon, soiled by dirt and blood. The demon cracked a
Saaur rib bone underfoot and absently kicked it aside. At last it came
to its secret room, the one it had claimed as its own while the Host of
the Fifth Circle resided on this cold planet. Leaving the demon realm
was a terrible experience, thought the young demon. This had been the
demon's first journey to this realm, and it wasn't sure it cared much for
the pain of transition.

The feasting had been glorious; never had it known such a wealth of
food, even though it was limited to scraps from the feasting pits,
thrown out by the mightiest of the host as they fed. But scraps or not,