"Bradley,.Marion.Zimmer.-.Darkover.-.Clingfire.2.-.Zandru's.Forge.(.With.Deborah.J.Ross)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

Something brushed against the back of Varzil's skull, at once feathersoft and grating, as if sand were being rubbed into his skin. But no, it was inside his head. Suddenly, a sensation of curiosity flickered through him and vanished as quickly.
The creature was studying him. Did it want something? He

had no foodЧand then he realized he thought of it as an animal, instead of an intelligent, if nonhuman, being.
Without a sound, the kyrri hurried away. Varzil watched as it crossed the outer courtyard and turned aside at the street. He felt as if he had been tested in some mysterious fashion, and he did not know if he had passed.
"Look down there!" a voice cried from above. "Some ne'er-do-well rascal has camped upon our doorstep!"
Varzil craned his neck back to stare up at a balcony running alongside the Tower to either side of the arch of the Veil. Two older boys leaned over, pointing. They looked to be in their late teens, their voices already deepened, waists and hips slender but with the shoulders of young manhood.
"You there! Boy! What are you doing here?"
Something in the voice rankled Varzil's nerves, or perhaps lingering irritability from the encounter with the kyrri drove him to snap back, "What business is it of yours? I have come to see the Keeper of Arilinn Tower, and that isn't you!"
"How dare you speak to us in such a manner!" The youth in the Tower leaned over. "You impudent good-for-nothing!"
The second boy pulled his friend back. "Eduin, you gain nothing in taunting him this way. He can do us no harm where he is, and he is clearly no street beggar. These words are unworthy of you." He spoke with the accent of a lowland aristocrat.
Varzil scrambled to his feet, heartpounding. A dozen retorts leaped to his mind. His hands curled into fists. He kept his teeth clamped tightly together, though the breath hissed through them. He had not spent the better part of his years shrugging off far worse insults, only to lose his temper now.
What was he doing, to provoke a confrontation this way? What was wrong with him? Courtesy cost nothing, but insults might well create future enemies. If he succeeded, these boys would become his fellow students. Beside, the only person whose opinion mattered was, after all, the Keeper himself.
Not trusting himself to say anything further, Varzil simply bowed to them. It was the only thing he could think of which would not make matters worse.
The boy named Eduin retreated from the balcony, muttering

something about proper respect for the dignity of the Tower. Varzil was concentrating too hard on holding his tongue to catch all the words. But the other youth, the one who had cautioned restraint, remained.
Varzil raised his eyes. The sun caught the brilliant red of the other boy's hair, the luminous gray eyes, the regular features. Both Tower lads wore simple clothing, tunics with wide leather belts, with no clue as to clan or rank.
"Boy," he called down, and this time the word carried no insult. His voice was strong and clear, as if he'd trained as a singer. "What do you want with the Keeper of Arilinn Tower?"
"I've come toЧI want to join the Tower." There it was.
For a long moment, the youth continued to study him. With a nod and, "Wait here," he disappeared back into the Tower.
Varzil let out the breath he did not know he had been holding. While he tried to calm himself, the Veil shimmered and parted like an iridescent waterfall. A man in a loose white monitor's robe stepped through. Gray dominated his chestnut-red hair and lines framed his mouth and underscored his eyes. A few paces behind came the youth from the balcony. This close, Varzil was struck by the other boy's commanding sense of presence.
The man in the white robe paused, his gaze flickering over the colors of Varzil's cloak, the gold and green of his clan.
"Vai Dom ..." Varzil broke the silence. "I am Varzil Ride-now, younger son of Dom Felix of Sweetwater. I have come to seek training here. Will you be so kind as to escort me to the Keeper?"
The taut mouth softened into a glimmer of a smile. "Young sir, I can imagine nothing more appropriate. I certainly wouldn't presume to decide what to do with you."
Varzil approached the Veil, as the white-robed man indicated. He'd never been so close to such a powerful matrix device before, only personal starstones or the telepathic damper the Ridenow household leronis had used when his mother had one of her fainting spells.
He held up one hand, fingers extended but not daring yet to touch the Veil. Besides a thing of beauty, what was it? Two

peopleЧthree if he counted the kyrriЧhad passed through it as if it had been a tissue of gauze.
He turned his head to see the monitor watching him intently. Another test, then. He set his jaw and strode ahead.
The Veil looked like a thin rainbow mist, and he had expected it to feel cool and perhaps damp. The instant it touched him, it shifted, engulfing him. He gasped, drawing in breath tainted with the metallic taste of a thunderstorm. The skin of his entire body tingled, each hair erect. The small muscles around his eyes twitched. He could not feel his fingertips.
The next instant, he stood trembling in a windowless cubicle. Although he was no longer directly within a matrix field, he sensed the power in the little room, as if it were itself a laran device. Turning to look behind him, he made out shapes, blurred and shadowy. Was this some kind of trap? Another test?
Then the white-robed monitor stepped through the rainbow shimmer. The youth followed him, grinning.
"I told you so," the youth said.
Told him what? Varzil wondered.
The man moved his hands as if manipulating something and Varzil's stomach plummeted to his feet. No, he still stood upon a solid floor, but the room itself was rising. It stopped a moment later and they stepped through an arched doorway that appeared in one wall. The lighted room beyond it opened onto a broad terrace.
Surely not even the ballroom of the greatest castle on Dark-over could be so grand, Varzil thought. Tapestries covered the walls, glowing with rich colors, depicting scenes of hunting parties, chieri dancing in the forest beneath the four moons, eagles soaring over the Hellers. The floor tiles formed an intricate mosaic pattern that was at once lavish and soothing to the eye. At the far end of the room, a fire filled the air with warmth and a touch of incense.
Armchairs and a long bench piled with cushions formed a rough half circle around the fireplace. A woman and two men sat there, talking in low tones. The woman met Varzil's gaze. She was about the age of Varzil's favorite aunt, short and com-

pact without being fat, the wrinkles around her eyes giving her the appearance of being perpetually on the edge of laughter. She got to her feet and dismissed the men with a gesture, something no woman in Varzil's family would ever dare to do.
"Off with you, too, Carlo," she told the red-haired youth.
"ButЧ" he protested.
She folded her arms across her ample, shawl-wrapped chest, silencing him. "What happens now is not your affair."
The youth delivered an impeccably polite bow arid left the room through the archway at the far end, but not without a quick wink at Varzil.
Varzil's breath caught in his throat. After the years of longing, the months of planning, the night's escape, and the long hours of waiting, things were happening much too fast.
Once, while climbing the craggy hills near Serrais in search of eagle feathers, Varzil had lost his footing and tumbled down a pebbled slope. Rock and sky had whirled together as stones pelted his body from a dozen different directions at once. He'd slid to a stop and lain there for a long time, panting and bruised, gazing up at the cloudless sky with amazement that he was still alive.
He felt that way now, although his body was unhurt. Dimly, he heard the woman's voice talking about a hot breakfast. He felt her hands on his shoulders, guiding him to a chair beside the fire.
"Sweet Evanda, you're half frozen!" she exclaimed. "Not to mentionЧ" Varzil could not follow her next words, "Чenergon channelsЧjust as if you've been working two solid nights without a break!"
The next moment she pressed a cup of steaming jaco into his hands. He felt the heat through the heavy ceramic with its intricate incised pattern, the smoothness of the glaze. The jaco had been sweetened with honey and laced with some herb he did not recognize. He swallowed it obediently, though it burned his tongue. Only then did he realize how badly he was shivering.
"Here, get this into you," the woman said, handing him a