"Julian May - Trillium 1 - Black Trillium" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

fabulous trading fairs of the swamp Oddlings. These fairs were held only during
the dry seasons, since the monsoons roaring up from the Southern Sea otherwise
made passage of the bogland watercourses impossible. Only the Oddlings
ventured about the Mazy Mire then, by ways they knew and methods they had
perfected many hundreds ago.

Trevista remains one of the great mysteries of our Peninsula. It is of unimaginable
age, and breathtakingly beautiful even in its present state of near-total
dilapidation. The labyrinthine canals, crumbling bridges, and majestic ruined
buildings are overgrown with a profusion of exquisite jungle flowers. Enough of
the original urban design remains to demonstrate that Trevista's builders possessed

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a sophistication and a technical expertise far above that of the most advanced
Peninsular civilization.

There is speculation by those interested in such matters that most of Ruwenda was
once a huge glacier-fed lake dotted with islands that are now mere elevations in
the swamp. Many of these are known to be crowned by similar ruins. Even the
Oddlings are unable to account for the ancient cities, saying only that they were
built by the Vanished Ones, and existed when their ancestors came into the swamp
country. Ruwenda Citadel itself, a veritable mountain of intricate stone walls,
bastions, keeps, towers, and interconnected buildings, also dates from remote
antiquity and is said to have been the seat of whatever primordial rulers the
Peninsula then bowed to.

The more isolated ruins, accessible only to the aborigines, were the source of the
most coveted trade items —antique art-objects and mysterious small mechanisms
which brought very high prices, not only from collectors in Labornok, but also
from would-be students of occult knowledge in the farthest reaches of the known
world. This trade, for reasons that will become plain, languished after Crown
Prince Voltrik became heir to the throne of Labornok and set in motion events that
would bring about the long-awaited conquest of our pestilential little southern
neighbor.

Voltrik was forced to wait a long time for his crown, since his uncle, King
Sporikar, lived well over his one hundred allotted years. During this time of
waiting, Voltrik diverted himself by planning the acquisition of yet another crown,
and also traveled widely. From one such expedition to the lands north of Raktum
he returned with a new companion who was to provide him with the key to
Ruwenda — the sorcerer Orogastus.

Voltrik was then in his eight-and-thirtieth year, a man of formidable physical
presence, black-bearded and granitically handsome, with a temper as
unpredictable and shocking as a thunderclap. His first wife, the beloved Princess
Janeel, died giving birth to Voltrik's only son, Antar. His second wife, Shonda,
perished under suspicious circumstances while on a lothok hunt, having failed to