"Debra Doyle & James MacDonald - Mageworlds 05 - The Long Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Debra)

Some twenty minutes after meeting with Jens, Mael saw the lights of the house shining out in
welcome through the trees. The house hadn't changed much over the years. The pillars that held up the
long veranda were as tall as ordinary trees back on Eraasi. Other parts of the house were trees, more of
the immense sky-tickling giants that made up the local forests. Warm yellow lantern-glow made the
veranda pleasant and welcoming, although the faint haze-effect of a force field let Mael know that casual
intruders-rockhogs and rufstaffas, perhaps-would not find an easy entrance.
Llannat Hyfid was waiting for them on the steps outside the force field. She hadn't changed much
either, as far as Mael could tell. She was still a small, dark-skinned woman, with features closer at first
look to plain than to pretty, although they had worn better over the years than some. Her black hair had
the streaks of early grey that came to so many of those who worked with Power, but her face was
almost as unlined as when Mael had first met her.
"Mistress," he began.
"Dinner first," she said. "Talk afterward. Jens, you go help Faral feed his sibs and send them off
to bed; I'll be in to say goodnight to 'Rada later."
The young man nodded amiably and vanished through the force field into the depths of the great
house. Mistress Hyfid called out, "And wash that blood off your hand before you go anywhere! I don't
want Kei or Dortan getting any ideas about going out hunting with the table knives!"
Mael suppressed a smile, and followed her up the steps. She led the way to a dining table set up
on an open porch illuminated by more of the lanterns. Her husband was waiting there for her, looming
almost as tall among the shadows as one of the Selvaurs themselves.
"Flybynights are running," Ari Rosselin-Metadi said as they approached. He gestured at the steep
slope out beyond the veranda, where shadows dipped and flitted in the clear air above the treetops.
"Shall I send the boys out to get some for dessert?"
"No," Mistress Hyfid said. "There's no need. Let's pour a drink to absent friends, then have our
dinner and get to business."
Ari nodded, and moved to a side table that held three tiny crystal glasses and a cut-glass
decanter of something purple. Ceremoniously, he filled the glasses and passed them round. Mael took
one, and breathed in a cautious sniff of the liquid's fumes. The scent was sharp and medicinal, and he
wondered what the Adept-worlders made it from.
"Absent friends," Mistress Hyfid said. She tossed back her drink, and Ari and Mael did the
same. The purple liquid had a sour, almost electric feel in the mouth. It was an acquired taste, Mael
supposed, though he didn't plan on working to acquire it.
The meal itself was plain but satisfying: a great deal of roast meat and steamed grain,
accompanied by thick slices of sweet, yellow-fleshed fruit. Mael found that his long walk upcountry from
the last pubtrans stop had left him famished. He ate heartily, finding the textures and flavors sufficiently
alien to be interesting but not-he felt certain the choice was deliberate-so strange as to be disquieting.
When they were all finished, Mistress Hyfid wiped the fruit juice off of her fingers with her napkin
and. laid the crumpled white fabric aside.
"I'm glad you could make it this far," she said. "I'm sorry I couldn't give you much of a reason in
my invitation, but it wasn't something I-"
"Mistress-" Mael experienced a sudden sting of anxiety.
"-you didn't call me here. I came on my own to ask for your advice."
She looked distressed. Her husband rumbled something in the Selvauran language; Mael
supposed he meant it for comfort and reassurance, but if so the effect was lost on a neutral observer.
"I sent messages," she said. "I even called in some old favors for the last one, and it went out by
personal post on a Space Force courier."
Mael shook his head. "No messages from you came to Eraasi while I was there."
"And when did you leave?"
"A month ago, planetary reckoning."