"Moon, Elizabeth - Gird 02 - Liar's Oath E-Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

He stared at the fire, as if it had answers to give. “I must find some way to
convince the southerners that I do represent Old Aare as well as the north. You
remember Andressat: those old lords believe no northern title. If it were
possible to find some buried talisman, some ancient relic…”
“Is a sword worth more than a swordsman?” Paksenarrion rested in her chair as if
weightless; no hawk ever had more vigilant eyes.
“No, but I’m not likely to find a convenient army of Aareans ensorceled for an
age, ready to my command—” He stopped abruptly; she had held up her hand. Her
face seemed closed a moment, then she grinned as happily as the young girl he
remembered.
“Are you not? Can you doubt the gods’ influence, sir king, in asking me here?”
“I would never doubt the gods where you’re concerned, but what—?”
“Kolobia,” she said, Kolobia. His breath caught in his throat. Where she had
been captured by iynisin, the elves’ cruel cousins who hated all living things,
who corrupted the very stone by dwelling in it. Where she had lost what made her
what she was, a paladin of Gird… he thought of what she had gone through to
regain it and winced away from the memory. She shook her head, impatient with
his sentiment. “Kolobia,” she said again, joyfully. “Luap’s Stronghold—the
sleeping knights there—”
“But you told me they waited some god’s call to wake—”
“So Amberion said, when we found them. But as you know the Marshal-Generals have
sent scholars there to read through their archives; they have not shared all
they learned abroad. Those were not Gird’s closest followers, as we first
thought, but mageborn, descendents of those lords against which Gird fought. And
in their own time, they believed themselves descended from the lords of Old
Aare.”
“Were they?” he asked.
She shrugged. “How can we know? We know what they said of themselves in their
records, but not if they spoke truth—or even knew it.”
“And you think I should try to wake them?”
“I think you should ask the gods, and possibly your elven relatives. The
scholars found as many mysteries as answers; they are not sure why the
stronghold was founded, or why an end came—even what the end was. The records
end abruptly, as if it came suddenly, or as if the writers expected no one to
read their words again.”
The king stood and paced the length of the room without speaking. Then he came
back to the table, and leaned on it, as if reading the maps and books thereon.
She watched him, silent.
“I know the way,” he said finally. “I know, and cannot tell you, how to wake the
sleepers… but without knowing why they sleep, and if some great power intended
another awakening for them, dare I intrude?”
“The gods will tell you, if you listen,” she said. He grunted; she always said
that, and for her it was true: she listened, and the gods guided her. That was
the essence of a paladin. For himself, it was more of a struggle. A king could
not merely follow; a king had to understand. She had said more than once that
paladins were not meant to govern.
“And what of the iynisin in Kolobia?” he asked. “If I waken the sleepers, what
about them?”
A shadow crossed her face, as well it might. “Sir king, if you could persuade
your elven relatives to explain more of the iynisin presence there it would help