"Richard A. Knaak - Dragonrealm 02 - Ice Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Knaak Richard A)

but that function was no longer necessary here.
"You know who I am, servant. You know your master will see me."
"That is up to the Ice Dragon."
The firedrake hissed. "Tell him it is Duke Toma who awaits!"
The declaration did not impress the odd-looking servant. Toma studied it with narrowed eyes—narrowed eyes that
widened when he saw the thing's true nature. His estimation of the Ice Dragon's powers grew and the nagging fear of
the Dragon King, which he had kept safely locked in the back of his mind, poured over his mental barriers.
Necromancer!
The servant turned. It was a thing of ice, a caricature of a man made all the more horrible because its binding structure,
its skel-eton, was a figure frozen within its core. The corpse, whether man or drake or elf or some other creature of
similar form, was im-possible to identify and moved within the ice man like a twisted puppet. Leg moved with leg, arm
with arm, head with head. It was as if someone was wearing an all-encompassing suit—save that, in this case, the suit
was wearing the someone. Toma won-dered about what had occurred here in the months since his escape from the
battle between the human mages, the cursed Bedlams.
Thinking of the Bedlams, Azran and Cabe, reinforced the drake's resolve. He knew that Cabe had won and that the
Dragon Kings were in disarray. Black was secluded in his domain, Lochivar, and the Gray Mists, which covered that
land, were so thin that there had been talk of confronting this one particular King at last.
The servant raised its staff toward the behemoth, which had remained silent and unmoving since its initial rise. The tip
of the staff was pointed at where Toma estimated the huge creature's head might be.
The leviathan began to sink back into the snow and ice. The two drakes' horses, only barely under control, now
panicked. Duke Toma had to raise his hand and draw a pattern in the air. The horses calmed.
Turning back to the two visitors, the servant indicated Toma's companion. "And him? He also wishes to visit my
lord?"
"He wishes nothing," said Toma, pulling the other horse over to him. He then reached up and took hold of his
companion's hood, and pulled it back so the face and color of the other drake could be easily studied. "He has no mind
with which to wish for even the smallest of favors. Yet, he is your lord's master, your lord's liege, King of Kings, and he
will be treated and cared for until he has recovered. It is your master's duty!"
Nearly identical to Toma in form save in height and color, the Gold Dragon stared forward mindlessly. A bit of drool
flowed from the left corner of his mouth and his forked tongue darted in and out at random. He would not, or perhaps
could not, return to his dragon form, and so Toma had also remained in his semi-human warrior form. They were two
scale-armored knights with helms topped by intricate dragon faces, their true faces. Within the helm itself, bloodied
eyes stared out. Though harder by far than any normal mail armor, what they wore was not clothing but their own
skins. Long ago, their ancestors could have assumed some other form, but continual contact with humans and the
re-alization of the advantages of a humanoid form had made this second shape something learned from the time of
birth. It had become as natural to them as breathing.
The Ice Dragon's servant bowed its head briefly in the direction of the Kings of Kings, acknowledging or mocking the
mindless monarch's sovereignty. Toma hissed loudly.
"Well? May we go on, or are we to make camp here and wait for spring?" Spring had not come to the Northern Wastes
since before the rule of the Dragon Kings. Now, the land was buried under a perpetual coat of snow and ice.
The creature stepped aside and pointed the staff at the mountains toward which the drakes had been riding. "My lord
knows of your presence. He is coming to meet you." This, at last, seemed to impress the servant. "He has not come to
the surface since returning from the last Council of Kings." The surface?
The chilling wind picked up, going from a constant annoyance to a howling, storming, chaotic whirlwind before Toma
could even pull the hood back over his father's head. The temperature, already distressingly uncomfortable for a
firedrake, became truly numbing, almost threatening to lower both riders' temperatures below a safe minimum. Visibility
dropped to nothing, so that all that Toma could see was snow. He only knew his father's horse remained near thanks
to the rope.
Something very large came to rest before them. Toma reinforced the restraining spell he had laid on the horses.
"Myyyy greetingsss to you, Duke Toma, hatchling of my brother, my king. My home issss open to you and our
majesty." The wind died down, though not to the level it had been pre-viously. Visibility improved to where the