"Dan Parkinson. The Gates of Thorbardin ("DragonLance Saga Heroes II" #2) (angl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

you feel about it, here. It's all right. I still have another,
just like it."
Above the blackstone path an iridescent raven
wheeled, circled, then flew off to the north as though
showing them the direction to take.
Other eyes also watched the bird, but not directly.
High on a wind-scoured crag, among the peaks east of
the Valley of Waykeep, a man knelt beside an ice pool,
gazing intently at its surface. A dark bison-pelt robe
pulled tight around his shoulders shielded him from the
cold, only here and there exposing the color of the long
robe he wore beneath it - a robe that had once been ver-
milion, but whose hood, cape, and hems now were faded
to the red of twilight. The color blended, in the shadow
of his hood, with unkempt whiskers the gray of winter
wind.
In the ice pool was an image: two beings on a black
path where black cats prowled the edges and a black bird
beckoned above. The image wavered and misted as an
errant wind scattered hard, dry snow across the ice.
Without looking up, the man raised a long staff with a
crystal device at its peak. Sunlight glinted in the crystal
and concentrated through it to glow on the surface of the
ice. The misted surface smoothed itself, melted, and re-
froze bright and clear. The two in the valley were on the

move, following the bird. Like a deadly honor guard,
great black cats plodded along both sides of the pathway,
flanking them.
The image shifted then. In the ice was a great, vaulted
chamber hewn from living stone. Dim and deserted, the
chamber contained various structures and articles, larg-
est of which was a great dais upon which rested a crypt.
Here and there on the shadowed walls hung paintings, all
done in the finest dwarven style. The view held on one
painting and seemed to approach it as the vision magni-
fied: a fighting dwarf in emblazoned armor, leading a
charge of dwarven warriors across a blasted mountain-
scape. Again the vision grew, focusing on the face of the
dwarf in the lead.
Peering closely into the ice, the man studied the fea-
tures of that face - wide, strong dwarven features of a
face that had known power and had known pain; wide-
set, intelligent eyes that had seen much of life and had
cherished most of it; a face chiseled for patience, twisted
now in fury as he led his armies in final assault.
The man studied the features as he had in many view-
ings, then twitched his staff. The view changed again,
back to the black pathway in the Valley of Waykeep.
This time the vision moved close, sighting on the irri-