A Song of Shadow (The Bard from Barliona Book #2) LitRPG series by Vasily Mahanenko & Eugenia Dmitrieva

Author:Vasily Mahanenko & Eugenia Dmitrieva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action, sci-fi, adventure, litrpg, gamelit, mahanenko, osadchuk, atamanov, alternative, livadny, fantasy
Publisher: Magic Dome Books
Published: 2018-12-08T05:00:00+00:00

THE ‘SINGING GAZEBO’ turned out to be an antique building at the summit of the highest of the hills at the base of Mount Mashuk.

The dome, supported by seven columns and crowned with a weathervane, as Pasha and Sasha explained to me during our ascent, was actually called an ‘Aeolian harp’—in honor of the ancient keeper of the winds in the Odyssey, and was built more than two centuries ago. It was the citizens themselves that had christened it the ‘singing gazebo,’ due to the harp installed inside: strings that were connected to the weathervane and which ran from the roof to the floor, changing direction and sound as the wind changed. The view of the city from here caused a whole barrage of emotions, warmed by the string symphony of nature itself—a simple, and simultaneously complex, majestic melody, living its own life, beyond the touch of man.

Naturally, this wonder could not leave any intelligent creature indifferent. Therefore, the site was constantly crowded—from couples who came for the romance of the place to artists and sculptors earning their money from the streams of tourists.

Perhaps, our trio did not attract much attention thanks to this. Only some elderly lady looked at Pasha with puzzlement and a young, patriotic artist, who looked like a cartoon lion, tried to give us a newly-painted landscape. Quite a good one, by the way.

“This is it—Kiera Khan—the singing gazebo,” Sasha majestically presented me to the local landmark. I bet Michelangelo used the same tone when he presented the Sistine Chapel to Pope Julius II.

“Well and all those,” he nodded at the onlookers milling around, “are details of the landscape.”

“It’s astounding...” I whispered, examining the instrument from different angles. “I wonder if you cobble something like this together in Barliona, whether the wind will cause the strings to sound?”

“That’s a question for the programmers,” Pasha immediately recused himself from making any predictions.

“Yeah,” Sasha agreed with his friend. “You know yourself it all depends on the little men in their closets pushing their magic buttons. The etherlords of the cyber, in a manner of speaking.”

Pasha rolled up to the edge of the platform and stuck his face into the wind.

“Once upon a time, a young lieutenant named Mikhail Lermontov stood in the same spot where Pasha sits right now,” Sasha intoned in the voice of a tour guide. “And took potshots at anyone who dared criticizes his poetry: Pushkin, Salieri and that, uh, Aesop fellow.”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded with an intelligent look. “And Homer...Simpson. I’m not as dumb as I seem, Snegov.”

“Ah don’t piss on my taking-the-piss-parade,” he said indignantly. “Instead of backing me up with an account of Lermontov’s tragic affair with Anna Karenina, must you break my wings just as I am set to soar? Right at the root—at the very ass. Can you imagine my suffering?”

“You there, sufferer, did you bring the water?” Pasha spoke up.

Sasha sighed, and hollered: “Sir, yes, sir, Master Yoda sir!”

Like a crazed boar he tore past some tourists, causing them to start.

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