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

"A pervert, then," said Metadi. "In that case, gentlesir, it will only increase your enjoyment if I tie
you securely before we go."
He glanced about the little room, frowning slightly. Perada thought that he seemed to be looking
for something.
"The curtain ropes," she said. "Will those do?"
"Good thinking. Pull 'em down."
 The ropes were thick and sturdy underneath their velvet casings. Perada worked quickly, and
soon had an armful of them ready to pass across the glass-strewn bed to Captain Metadi, who holstered
his blaster and set about binding the unfortunate clerk.
"There," he said when he was done. He looked down at the clerk, now trussed and tied like a
fowl for the roasting.
"I wouldn't straggle, by the way, if I were you. You'll only strangle yourself."
"He isn't straggling," Perada felt obliged to point out. "He's too scared."
"Smart man," Metadi said. He extended a hand to help her scramble over the couch. "There you
are, Domina. Let's go."



Perada Rosselin: Entibor
(Galcenian Dating 962 A.F.
Entiboran Regnal Year 26 Veratina)
Perada Rosselin-five years old, her pale yellow hair barely long enough to make into
braids--shivered as she made her way carefully along the second-floor ledge of her mother's manor
house. She wished she'd remembered to wear a jacket. The late-spring sun of Felshang Province looked
bright and warm, but outside, and this high above the ground, the wind was cold.
She'd reached the ledge, quite easily, by climbing over the sill of the casement window in the
upstairs guest bedroom next to the nursery. Because it was the smallest and most inconvenient of the
empty rooms, nobody had ever noticed that the force field over the window opening didn't work
anymore. The ledge itself was over a foot wide, and the big bluestone statues that stood along it at
intervals were tall enough to hide a small person from anyone looking up from below.
Just the same, she'd taken care not to be seen. She knew that she wasn't going to fall off the
ledge, but she also knew that none of the adults in the house would ever agree. If anybody suspected that
the ledge, with its high, windy solitude and its view of the fields and vineyards of Felshang, was her secret
haven, then the window in the empty room would be locked and the force field repaired-and Perada
would be taking all her meals in the nursery until Mamma decided she'd grown up enough to know
better.
So Perada was always very quiet, and very cautious, when she went out onto the ledge.
Especially today. She made her way on hands and knees past the nursery windows, and eased herself an
inch at a time across the carved stone lap of the statue on the southwest corner. At last she came to a
spot outside the open windows of her mother's study.
She squeezed herself into place beyond the outflung pane of the open casement, in a nook
sheltered from the wind by the hunched shoulder of a bluestone gargoyle. She didn't normally risk coming
so far, but today she had a special reason. She wanted to listen to what Mamma and Dadda were talking
about when she wasn't there.
Dadda had come down from the capital by aircar that morning-in the middle of the week during
school season, which wasn't usual for him-and all through lunch he and Mamma had spoken to each
other in worried-sounding half-sentences. Perada had understood without asking that they didn't want to
talk about it in front of her-whatever "it" was that could make Mamma look frightened and solemn and
excited all at once-but they were talking about it now, in Mamma's study.
"She won't do it," Mamma was saying, and Perada knew that they were talking about