"David Eddings. Castle of wizardry enchanters' end game (The Belgariad, Part two)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Garion wordlessly handed Errand up to Aunt Pol and looked her full in the
face. She said nothing as she took the child, but her expression told him
plainly that something very important had just happened.
As he turned to remount his horse, he felt that someone was watching
him, and he turned quickly toward the group of riders that had accompanied
Queen Silar from the Stronghold. Just behind the queen was a tall girl
mounted on a roan horse. She had long, dark brown hair, and the eyes she
had fixed on Garion were gray, calm, and very serious. Her horse pranced
nervously, and she calmed him with a quiet word and a gentle touch, then
turned to gaze openly at Garion again. He had the peculiar feeling that he
ought to know her.
The wagon creaked as Durnik shook the reins to start the team, and they
all followed King Cho-Hag and Queen Silar through a narrow gate into the
Stronghold. Garion saw immediately that there were no buildings inside the
towering fortress. Instead there was a maze of stone walls perhaps twenty
feet high twisting this way and that without any apparent plan.
"But where is thy city, your Majesty?" Mandorallen asked in perplexity.
"Inside the walls themselves," King Cho-Hag replied. "They're thick
enough and high enough to give us all the room we could possibly need."
"What purpose hath all this, then?"
"It's just a trap." The king shrugged. "We permit attackers to break
through the gates, and then we deal with them in here. We want to go this
way." He led them along a narrow alleyway.
They dismounted in a courtyard beside the vast wall. Barak and Hettar
unhooked the latches and swung the side of the wagon down. Barak tugged
thoughtfully at his beard as he looked at the sleeping Belgarath. "It
would probably disturb him less if we just took him inside bed and all,"
he suggested.
"Right," Hettar agreed, and the two of them climbed up into the wagon
to lift out the sorcerer's bed.
"Just don't bounce him around," Polgara cautioned. "And don't drop him."
"We've got him, Polgara," Barak assured her. "I know you might not
believe it, but we're almost as concerned about him as you are."
With the two big men carrying the bed, they passed through an arched
doorway into a wide, torch-lighted corridor and up a flight of stairs,
then along another hallway to another flight.
"Is it much farther?" Barak asked. Sweat was running down his face into
his beard. "This bed isn't getting any lighter, you know."
"Just up here," the Algar Queen told him.
"I hope he appreciates all this when he wakes up," Barak grumbled. The
room to which they carried Belgarath was large and airy. A glowing brazier
stood in each corner and a broad window overlooked the maze inside the
walls of the Stronghold. A canopied bed stood against one wall and a large
wooden tub against the other.
"This will be just fine," Polgara said approvingly. "Thank you, Silar."
"We love him too, Polgara," Queen Silar replied quietly.
Polgara drew the drapes, darkening the room. Then she turned back the
covers, and Belgarath was transferred to the canopied bed so smoothly that
he did not even stir.
"He looks a little better," Silk said.