Читать онлайн «City of the Rats»

Автор Эмили Родда

Contents

Title Page

1 The Trap

2 Roast Meat

3 Everything for the Traveller

4 Money Matters

5 The Bargain

6 Noradz

7 Strange Customs

8 The Trial

9 The Kitchens

10 The Hole

11 The Price of Freedom

12 A Matter of Business

13 Broad River and Beyond

14 Night of the Rats

15 The City

16 Reeah

17 Hope

The Deltora Book of Monsters

Preview: The Golden Door

About the Author

Also by Emily Rodda

The story so far …

Sixteen-year-old Lief, fulfilling a pledge made by his father before he was born, has set out on a great quest to find the seven gems of the magic Belt of Deltora. The Belt is all that can save the kingdom from the tyranny of the evil Shadow Lord, who, only months before Lief’s birth, invaded Deltora and enslaved its people with the help of sorcery and his fearsome Grey Guards.

The gems — an amethyst, a topaz, a diamond, a ruby, an opal, a lapis lazuli, and an emerald — were stolen to open the way for the evil Shadow Lord to invade the kingdom. Now they lie hidden in dark and terrible places throughout the land. Only when they have been restored to the Belt can the heir to Deltora’s throne be found, and the Shadow Lord defeated.

Lief’s companions are the man Barda, who was once a Palace guard, and Jasmine, a wild, orphaned girl of Lief’s own age who they met in the fearful Forests of Silence.

In the Forests they discovered the amazing healing powers of the nectar of the Lilies of Life. There they also won the first gem — the golden topaz, symbol of faith, which has the power to bring the living into contact with the spirit world, and to clear and sharpen the mind. At the Lake of Tears, they broke the evil enchantment of the sorceress Thaegan, released the peoples of Raladin and D’Or from her curse, and won the second gem — the great ruby, symbol of happiness, which pales when misfortune threatens its wearer.

Now read on …

Footsore and weary, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine moved west, towards the fabled City of the Rats. They knew little about their goal except that it was a place of evil, deserted by its people long ago. But they were almost sure that one of the seven lost gems of the Belt of Deltora lay hidden there.

They had been walking steadily all day and now, as the glowing sun slipped towards the horizon, they longed to stop for rest.

But the road on which they walked, deeply rutted with the tracks of wagons, threaded through a plain where thornbushes had taken hold and spread, covering the land. The thorns lined the road without break, and extended as far as the eye could see.

Lief sighed, and for comfort touched the Belt hidden under his shirt. It held two gems now: the golden topaz and the scarlet ruby. Both had been won against great odds, and in the process of winning them, great things had been done.

The people of Raladin, with whom they had stayed for the last two weeks, did not know of their quest to find the lost gems. Manus, the Ralad man who had shared the search for the ruby, was sworn to silence. But it was no secret that the companions had caused the death of the evil sorceress Thaegan, ally of the evil Shadow Lord. It was no secret, either, that two of Thaegan’s thirteen children had gone the way of their mother. The Ralads, freed at last from Thaegan’s curse, had made many songs of joy, praising the companions for their deeds.