"Sean Russell - The Swan's War 3 - The Shadow Roads" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Sean)

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JTC/RRD

This book is dedicated to
Sean Stewart and Neal Stephenson;
artists, craftsmen, friends

Acknowledgments
As usual, there are people to thank: my editors Diana Gill and Tim Holman; my wonderful agent, Howard
Morhaim; my wife, Karen, and her family, June, Nori, Don, Lorraine, Michael, and Carlos, who have
been a source of tremendous support and assistance dur-ing a trying year.

THE
SHADOW ROADS
Prologue

What Went Before
The children of the sorcerer Wyrr did not die, but dwelt for an age in the river as "nagar"; ghostly spirits.
The Knights of the Vow were formed to stop the children of Wyrr from ever finding their way back to
the land of the living, but members of the brotherhood were seduced by promises of power and long life,
and they hid away "smeagh"—arcane objects that could allow the children of Wyrr to return one day. By
this means Wyrr's two sons and his daughter made bargains with mortals and appeared again among the
living.

Wyrr's children, powerful sorcerers, had fought among them-selves for a thousand years, and when they
reappeared in the land between the mountains their hatred was undiminished, and they took up their feud
again. Thus it was that Lady Elise Wills and a traveler named Alaan became the enemies of a knight
known as Hafydd, who had contrived to start a war among the principal fam-ilies of the land between the
mountains so that he might come to power in the ensuing turmoil.

Unable to destroy Hafydd, Alaan lured him into the hidden

lands—into the Stillwater—a vast swamp that Alaan believed only he could escape. But Alaan's plans
went awry when he was wounded by one of Hafydd's guards, and his wound festered in the foul waters
of the swamp. Alaan would have been caught and killed, but he was rescued by a stranger accompanied
by an army of crows. This man, Rabal Crowheart, showed him a ruin where Alaan found a chamber
containing a great enchantment—the spell that separated the land between the mountains from the hidden
lands, and the land of the living from the kingdom of the dead. Alaan recognized then that the
enchantment had begun to decay.

Learning that Alaan was wounded and pursued by Hafydd, Elise Wills found the wanderer who could
draw maps into the hid-den lands and forced him to make her a map leading to the Still-water. She, the
Valemen, and Alaan's friend Pwyll, set off, hoping to save Alaan. They didn't know that map maker, Kai,
had also sent a legendary warrior into the swamp—a near giant named Orlem Slighthand.

While he lay in delirium from his corrupted wound, Alaan was approached by an ancient man-at-arms
offering him a gem he claimed had been left for a child ofWyrr, by Wyrr's brother, Aillyn. Fearing it was
a smeagh that would bring Aillyn back into the world, Alaan refused it, but Hafydd was not so wary and
took the gem, thinking it was a stone of legend that had once belonged to the great sorcerer Tusival.