Читать онлайн «The Shifting Sands»

Автор Эмили Родда

Contents

Title Page

1 Flight

2 Forbidden Fruit

3 The Road to Rithmere

4 Lost in the Crowd

5 Win and Lose

6 Berry, Birdie, and Twig

7 Trouble

8 The Games

9 The Finalists

10 The Champion

11 Easy as Winking

12 No Choice

13 The Shifting Sands

14 Terror

15 The Center

16 The Cone

The Deltora Book of Monsters

Preview: The Golden Door

About the Author

Venture into Deltora

The story so far …

Sixteen-year-old Lief, fulfilling a pledge made by his father before he was born, is on a great quest to find the seven gems of the magic Belt of Deltora. 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 Deltora. Hidden in fearsome places throughout the land, they must be restored to the Belt before the heir to the throne can be found and the Shadow Lord’s tyranny ended.

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.

So far they have found three gems. The golden topaz, symbl of faith, has the power to contact the spirit world, and to clear the mind. The ruby, symbol of happiness, pales when danger threatens, repels evil spirits, and is an antidote to venom. The opal, gem of hope, gives glimpses of the future.

On their travels, the companions have discovered a secret resistance movement made up of people pledged to defy the Shadow Lord. But servants of the Enemy are everywhere. Some, like his brutual Grey Guards, are easily recognized. Others keep their dark loyalty well hidden.

The three companions are lucky to have escaped the City of the Rats alive. But now they are stranded on the barren plain that surrounds it, having lost all their supplies.

The opal has given Lief a terrible vision of their next goal: The Shifting Sands.

Now read on …

It seemed to Lief that they had been walking beside the river forever. Yet only one night and part of a day had passed since he, Barda, and Jasmine had left the City of the Rats in flames. The faint smell of smoke hung in the still air, though the city was now just a blur on the horizon at their backs.

They had long ago discarded the heavy red garments and boots which had saved them from the rats. Walking was easier now. But hunger and exhaustion were making the journey seem endless, and the fact that the landscape never changed did not help. Hour by hour the companions had trudged over bare, baked earth hemmed in on both sides by the waters of Broad River — waters so wide that they could barely see the far banks.

Though all of them badly needed rest, they knew that they had to keep moving. The plume of smoke staining the blue sky at their backs was like a signal to their enemies. It was a sign that something of great importance had happened in the terrible place where the third stone of the Belt of Deltora had been hidden. Should the Shadow Lord become aware that the stone had been taken, his servants would begin searching for the thieves.