"Ed Greenwood - Shandril's Saga 03 - Hand of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Greenwood Ed)

venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus




"We're no strangers to pain, we who play with fire.
Masters of fire or great archmages alike
Sooner or later, we all get burned."

—The Simbul, Witch-Queen of Aglarond




vera incessu patuit dea
 Hand of Fire
by Ed Greenwood.
 Prologue
The breeze was blowing strong ashore this night, bringing wafts of the salty seacoast
tang of dead things with it—and bringing the stink of the harbor to better wards of
Water-deep.
Both of the men in the many-shadowed upstairs room over The Laughing Lass festhall
were used to the smells; they hadn't bothered to light the perfumed oil lamp that sat
on the table between them—nor called for ale or soft and affectionate ladies to serve
it to them, for that matter.
The sensuous, coiling music of the dancers made a muted throbbing beneath their boots
on the bare board floor, punctuated by occasional high-pitched cries and peals of
laughter—but neither man had a moment of attention for anything but the man across
the table from him and the items on that table. Only the occasional scrape of a boot
heel from closer at hand—the room outside the door, where bodyguards of both men
lounged facing each other in uneasy, silently insolent tension—made the two merchants
so much as flicker an eyelash.
"Come, Mirt!" the man with the slender, oiled-to-points mustache said, just a hint of
anger in his brisk impatience. "Dawn comes, and I've other deals to make. I grant the
quality, the amount is ideal, even the casks are to my liking. So let's sign and seal and
be done."
The older, fatter, walrus-mustached man across the table rumbled, "There remains the
small detail of price. Crowns of old Athalantar are good gold, heavy, and all too rarely
seen. Them I like. The number of them on offer, however, seems less satisfactory."
"Six per cask seems generous to me."
"So 'twould be, were we at your sheds in Luskan," Mirt the Moneylender returned,
"with me looking about in vain for someone else to take my wine. Yet—behold—we sit
in fair Waterdeep, where men clamor to outbid each other . . . even for rare Evermeet
vintages."
The man who wore the silks of Luskan—black, shot with irregular clusters of tiny
white stars—sighed, ran one finger along his mustache, and said, "Seven per cask."
"Eight per cask and one crown more," Mirt replied, sliding the one small hand-cask
that stood on the table forward a little, so that the Luskanite's eyes strayed to follow
the movement.
"Seven."