"Moon, Elizabeth - Deed Of Paksenarrion - 02 - Divided Allegiance V1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

"What?"
Macenion looked smug. "The door—the way in."
"That?"
"Yes." He drew out a short black rod; Paks looked down, more frightened than she cared to admit. Some-tiling sizzled, and she looked quickly at die circle: it was gone. A hole in the floor revealed a spiral stair. Dust lay thick on the stone steps.
Paks took a deep breath. "Do you think we're the first to come this way? The first to be asked for help?"
"I don't know. Probably not. Only a magician could find this way down, you know. Perhaps others couldn't find a way to help and went away. You stay here a moment, while I take a quick look down." Macenion set a careful foot on the first step. Nothing happened. He went down several more, bending to look beneath the floor. Pafo looked out the way they had come in, half expecting some monster to appear on their trail, but there was nothing. As she watched, Macenton's horse moved past die opening to drink at the fountain; she heard it sucking the water up. When she looked back at the hole in the floor, Macenion was coming back up. "Just below, the ceiling's much higher, we won't have any problem. And I don't see that any-thing's disturbed the dust. The only thing is, the stair is only one person wide—"
Paks suppressed a last shudder of doubt about the wisdom of this whole project, and grinned at him. "I suppose you'd like the fighter to go in front, eh? Well, I can't see behind myself; I'd just as soon know who's at my back." She drew her sword as she spoke. "But I’ll have this out, just in case. What about tight? Must I carry a candle or torch?"
"No-o—" said Macenion, climbing out of her way onto die floor. "There's light."
"What sort of light?"
'I'm not sure. It may be the same the elves used. But it's easily light enough to see."
"What if it goes out? You'd best keep some sort of flame alight, Macenion."
Why should it go out if it's lasted this long? Oh, all right—' he answered her look of disgust. "But you're so suspicious."
MI'm alive," said Paks, "and I intend to stay that way."
"As a fighter, an adventurer?"
"Some do," said Paks, starting down the stairs. "And from what I hear, those that do stay suspicious. Magicians, too."
The stair dropped steeply, and curved to the right, back under die floor. Paks found that she did not have to duck at all; when she thought about it, she remembered that elves were, in general, taller than humans. Light filled the stairwell as far as she could see, a gentle, white light with no apparent source. She looked back once, to see the deep scuffing footprints she had made in the dust. Macenion was just in sight, several steps higher. After what she judged was die first half-turn, the steps were not so steep. She could move more easily now, and, of course, anything coming up could do so as well. She glanced back again, for Macenion, and thought of the spefl he had promised to put at their backs.
"What did you do up there?" she asked softly, nodding upward.
"It's open," he said. "If I'd closed it, and anything happened to me, you couldn't get out that way. But I put a spell on the opening that should repel anything from outside trying to get in. And just in case, I put another spell on it to give us an alarm if something does go through."
All that sounded impressive to Paksenarrion. She hoped it would work. "Do you know how far this goes down?'
"No. It should open into a wide hall at die bottom, though."
Paks went on. The mysterious light bothered her. The silence bothered her. She felt her hand grow sweaty on her sword hilt, and that bothered her. Nothing had happened; no danger appeared, and yet her breath came short, just as if she were a recruit in her first battle. She concentrated on the construction of the stair: pale gray stone underfoot, and slightly darker gray stone on the walls and vaulted ceiling. The stair treads were ribbed, under the dust, and when she reached to feel the walls, she found that they were lightly incised with an intricate design. Remembering Macenion's warning, she took her fingers off the wall. She looked back over her shoulder again. Macenion, too, had one hand on the wall; when he met her eyes he smiled at her.
"It's decoration and information both," he said. "I can read some of it, though I'd have to stand here a long time to figure it out. But for those who lived here, it would be a way of telling how far they had come, though that's not what it says, exactly." He moved his hand along the section of wall nearest him. "This, for example, is part of an old song: The Long Ride of Torre.' Do you know it?"
Paks nodded. "If that's the same Torre as Torre's Necklace."
"Of course. Do you know the story?"
"Yes." Paks turned again and kept stepping down. The dust seemed no thicker, and with no changes in light or silence, she had a hard time figuring out how for they had come. At last she saw an opening ahead, rather man a curving wall. As she came to the last step, and waited for Macenion to close in behind her, she could see a space of dusty stone paving, and nothing else. Although it was light beyond the opening, any walls were too far away to show.
"Now this, I believe, was the winterhall," said Macenion, peering past her. "Go on, Paksenarrion."
"And have whatever's waiting beside the door take my head off? Let's be careful." Paks unslung her small shield and reached for Macenion's walking staff.
He jerked it away. "What?"
Paks sighed. "Remember what I just said about doorways? Better a piece of wood than my neck."
"Oh, all right." Macenion handed over his staff grumpily. Paks tied the shield quickly to one end, and stuck it through the door. Nothing happened. She pulled it back, handed Macenion his staff, tightened the shield on her arm, and slipped quickly through the doorway, putting her back to the wall beside it.
She was in a large bare hall, lit by the same mysterious means as the stair. It stretched away on either side of the doorway she'd come through for twice the distance of its width. No furniture remained, and dust covered the broad floor. Macenion came through after her, and looked up. Pafcs followed his gaze. Far overhead the arched ceiling was formed into intricate branches and vaults, a tracery of stone such as Pales had never seen. Between ribs of dark stone, patterns of smaller colored ones gave almost the effect of a forest overhead.
"That's—beautiful—" she whispered, hardly aware of speaking.
For once, Macenion did not take a superior tone. "It's—I've never seen the like myself. I knew this was once the seat of the High King, but I never imagined—" He took a few steps out into the hall, and looked at his footprints. "Certainly this has not been disturbed for many years—perhaps not since they left."
Paks had noticed, at the right end of the hall, a darker alcove. "What's that?"
"That should lead to other passages. But I can't understand why there are no signs at all." Macenion stopped and shook his head. "We won't find out anything by standing here. Let me think—"
Paks scanned the walls again. At the left end of the hall was a dais, four steps up from the main level, and at the back of it an arched doorway. Two heavily patterned bronze doors closed the opening. Across from her, on the other long wall, were four doorways, also closed with heavy doors. At the right end, no doors showed save the alcove, if that was, as Macenion said, an opening.
"Do you know where any of these doors lead?" she asked.
"The door on the dais leads to the royal apartments. The others—no, blast it, I can't remember. We'll have to look and see."
"Would the doors be locked?"
"I doubt it. They may be spelled, though. Luckily I have ways of handling that. Perhaps we should start with the royal apartments. We might find something worthwhile there."
Paks felt a twinge. "We're here to help that trapped thing, first. I don't think treasure hunters would be lucky here."
"I was thinking we might find something that would help us free the spirit, Paksenarrion. It wasn't just greed."
Paks was not convinced. She turned from one side to the other, trying to feel which way to go. Was that a pull toward the right end? Or the door directly across from her? And if it was, did it come from the one they wanted to help or from the enemy? She shook her head, as if to clear it, and watched Macenion approach the royal doors. A feeling of wrongness grew stronger. He reached the foot of the dais.
"Macenion! No!" She surprised herself as much as him with her shout.
He whirled to face her. "What?"
"Don't go that way." She was utterly certain of danger. She moved quickly to his side, and lowered her voice. "That's wrong; I'm sure of it. If you go up there, well—"
"Paksenarrion, you're no seer. I assure you that we may very well find, in the royal apartments, clues to what sort of spirit may be locked here. We'll certainly find information about the layout of the underground passages."
"That may be, but if you open that door, Macenion, you'll wish you hadn't."
He looked at her closely. "Have you had some sort of message? From a—a god, or something like that?"
"I don't know. But I know you shouldn't go that way. And I may not be a seer, Macenion, but I have had warning feelings before, and they've been true."