"Julian May - Trillium 3 - Sky Trillium" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

my wizard's workshop."

Inside it was completely dry. The Prince lit a three-candle reflector lamp

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standing on a makeshift table. The hut had few other furnishings aside from a
stool, a carboy of drinking water, and a set of hanging shelves that held a few
jars and firkins of preserved food. Certainly there were no instruments, books, or
any of the other occult appurtenances one might expect in a sorcerer's lair.

Tolivar dropped to his knees, brushed aside the cut ferns and rushes that covered
the dirt floor, and began to pry up a large, thin slab of stone. In the cavity
beneath it lay two bags of coarse woolen cloth—one small and the other larger.
Tolivar placed both on the table.

"These are the precious things we have come for," he told Ralabun. "I did not
think it wise to conceal them in the Citadel."

The old aborigine eyed the bags with growing misgiving. "And what happens to
these things when you reside in Derorguila during winter?"

"I have a safe hiding place in the ruins just outside Zotopanion Keep where
nobody goes. I found it four years ago, during the Battle of Derorguila, when I
had the good fortune to acquire this great treasure." The boy opened the larger
bag and slid out a slender, shallow box about the length of a man's arm and three
handspans wide. It was made of a dark glassy material, and upon its lid was
embossed a silver many-rayed Star.

Ralabun cried out: "Lords of the Air! It cannot be!"

Saying nothing, Tolivar opened the smaller bag. Something flashed brilliantly
silver in the lamplight—a curiously wrought coronet having six small cusps and
three larger. It was ornamented with carved scrollwork, shells, and flowers, and
beneath each of the three larger points was a grotesque face: one was a hideous

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Skritek, the second was a grimacing human, and the third was a fierce being with
stylized starry locks of hair who seemed to howl in silent pain. Beneath the
central visage was a tiny replica of Prince Tolivar's royal coat of arms.

"The Three-Headed Monster," Ralabun croaked, nearly beside himself with awe.
"Queen Anigel's magical talisman that she surrendered as ransom to the vile
sorcerer Orogastus!"