"01 - The Road to Underfall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jefferies Mike)

his hand touched the Master of Night.'

'Krulshards!' gasped the young listener, huddling against
the floor.

'The one whose eyes are the black holes of despair and
whose breath will overshadow the moon or blot out the stars.
He had arisen to destroy Elundium.'

'Did he make all the darkness?' asked the younger voice.

Again the laughter rekindled the point of light.

'There were, before that hammer blow, two worlds in
perfect parallel. One above the ground, at peace with nature, in
harmony with the sunlight. While in the darkness beneath the
surface in the other world unnatural things had grown, nightmare
images that hated the light. The Mason Kings had
stripped the surface of Elundium in their search for the purest
stone, weakening and drawing the two worlds together, and in
their ignorance they had awaken Krulshards, the Master of the
Darkness.'

'Which world have I come from?' asked the listener in
confusion.

'Patience!' hissed the other voice. 'Listen. The storms of
night gradually receded, leaving King Mantern face to face
with the one he had touched and he cried out, clutching at his
withering hand. Before him stood a mirror image of himself,
the black inner self of his nightmares that had driven him to
make that hammer blow. Krulshards. Before him stood a
figure more powerful than any being that had ever walked in
Elundium. Shadowy and terrible to look upon. Wrapped in a
black malice which covered corrupted rotten flesh that hated
the sunlight.

'He sneered at the King, gripping him with bone black
fingers, laughing in his face. "I have summoned you, Sun King,
to set me free and now I shall take everything and cover
Elundium with darkness."

'King Mantern struggled helplessly as Krulshards lifted him
high above his head and cast him down the mountainside.
Night winds screamed and tormented him and savage storms
lashed at his body as he fell, but eventually battered and
bruised he reached the lower slopes and came to rest on the
edge of a steep slope of living granite. It sparkled and glowed in
the dark and as the King slid across its surface, searching for a
way down, he saw within the rock face a sleeping form.'