"Debra Doyle & James MacDonald - Mageworlds 04 - The Gathering Flame" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

"You say we might have a problem?"
He glanced at her again and nodded. "I'm not sure if you're the target, or if I am, or if it's the two
of us together-but I'm feeling more like someone has me locked and tracking with fire control than makes
me comfy."
"Oh." At least, she reflected, Captain Metadi had spoken of "we" and "us." Maybe there was a
chance she could bring him around after all.
Great-Aunt 'Tina would be furious-the Head of House Rosselin taking a Gyfferan nobody
for Consort!
She was willing to go that far if she had to. Ser Hafrey hadn't approved of the idea when she'd
broached it to him on the hyperspace run to Innish-Kyl, but he knew better than to gainsay the Domina
on a dynastic matter.
Captain Jos Metadi was not, after all, simply a Gyfferan nobody. His family and his early history
might be untrace-able-if Ser Hafrey said that a man's lineage was obscure, no conventional records
check was going to provide the information-but his current fame and his known accomplishments were
matters of established fact. Jos Metadi was, by anybody's reckoning, the foremost captain among the
privateers of Innish-Kyl, and the .only one who had proved consistently able to bring other ships under
his command.
If he can do it for a rabble of pirates, she told herself, he can do it for me.
Meanwhile, the captain was rummaging under the tapestries that covered the walls of the private
room.
"Damned thing's back here somewhere," she heard him mutter under his breath. He let the
tapestry drop back against the wall. "I wasn't counting on a room with only one way out."
"My fault, I'm afraid. Ser Hafrey insisted-the better to control the circumstances of our
discussion, he said."
"I hope he hasn't controlled us right into a bloody ambush," Metadi commented. His Gyfferan
accent was stronger than it had been, and there was an edge to his voice that hadn't been there when he
came in. "I suppose he insisted on scanning the room for spy-eyes and snoop-buttons?"
"Of course," she said. "But there weren't any."
"No electronics." Metadi was prowling about the perimeter of the room, looking for she didn't
know what. "Then how would they ... hah!"
He'd come to the alcove with the bed, where heavy curtains swagged across the entrance partly
hid and partly revealed the cushioned interior. He seized the fabric of the curtains with one hand and
jerked it aside. Light came into the alcove from the glowcubes that illuminated the room itself, and Perada
saw with a faint sense of shock that the entire back wall of the alcove was a single large mirror.
She blinked, and swallowed. "What? Surely you don't- not now?"
Metadi wasn't listening. He picked up one of the high-backed wooden chairs, lifted it over his
head, and threw it full-force into the alcove. The chair hit the mirror with a tremendous splintering crash.
Shards of silver-backed glass fell down like spangles onto the bed below. Where the mirror had been,
Perada saw an empty hole-and beyond that, a small room with walls of dead black, and a pale,
clerkish-looking man with an expression of intense surprise on his otherwise unremarkable face.
"One-way glass," said Metadi. He'd drawn that heavy blaster she'd noticed earlier, and was
pointing it at the clerk-which explained, Perada thought, why the man hadn't made any attempt to run
away. "I expect that news of our chat is all over Innish-Kyl by now. In a week most of the civilized
galaxy will know about it. In two, even the Magelords will know."
"You expected something like this, didn't you?"
"Let's say it doesn't surprise me very much."
By now, Metadi was inside the black-walled cubicle, presenting the frightened clerk with a
close-range view of his blaster. "Maybe our friend here is nothing but a random pervert who bought
himself an evening at the peep show-but it's a lot more likely that he's a paid spy."
The clerk turned even paler than before. "No, no ..."