"Dragonlance - Deathgate Cycle 02 - Elven Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Deathgate Cycle)

Be careful, Haplo, be circumspect. Do nothing to draw attention to yourself. I embrace you in my heart. I look forward to embracing you in my arms on your safe and successful return. Your lord and father.3

CHAPTER " 1

EQUILAN, TREETOP LEVEL

3Hapk>, Pryan, World of Fire, vol. 2 of Death Gate journals.

CALANDRA QUINDINIAR SAT AT THE HUGE POLISHED SCROLL DESK ADDING up the last month's earnings. Her white fingers darted rapidly over the abacus, sliding the beads up and down, muttering the figures aloud to herself as she wrote them in the old leather-bound ledger. Her handwriting was much like herself: thin, upright, precise, and easy to read.

Above her head whirled four plumes made of swans' feathers, keeping the air moving. Despite the suffocating midcycle heat outside, the interior of the house was cool. It stood on the highest elevation in the city and so obtained the breeze that Otherwise was often lost in the jungle vegetation.

The house was the largest in the city, next to the royal palace. (Lenthan Quindiniar had the money to build his house larger than the royal palace, but he was a modest elf and knew his place,) The rooms were spacious and airy with high ceilings and numerous windows and the magical system of flutterfans, at least one in every room. The living rooms were on the second floor and were open and beautifully furnished. Drawn shades darkened and cooled them during bright hours of the cycle. During stormtime, the shades were raised to catch the refreshing, rain-drenched breezes.

Calandra's younger brother, Paithan, sat in a rocking chair near the desk. He rocked lazily back and forth, a palm fan in his hand, and watched the rotation of the swans' wings above his sister's head. Several other fans were visible to him from the

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study-the fan in the living room and beyond that the fan in the dining area. He watched them all waft through the air and between the rhythmic flutter of the wings and the clicking of the beads of the abacus and the gentle creaking of his chair, he fell into an almost hypnotic trance.

A violent explosion that shook the three-level house jolted Paithan upright.

"Damn," he said, looking irritably at a fine sifting of plaster' that was falling from the ceiling into his iced drink.

His sister snorted and said nothing. She had paused to blow

plaster off the page of the ledger, but did not miss a figure. A

wail of terror could be heard, coming from the level down below.

"That'll be the new scullery maid," said Paithan, rising to his

feet. "I better go and comfort her, tell her it's only father-"

"You'll do no such thing," snapped Calandra, neither raising her head nor ceasing to write. "You'll sit right there and wait until I'm finished so that we can go over your next trip norinth. It's little enough you do to earn your keep, idling about with your noble friends, doing Orn knows what. Besides, the new girl's a human and an ugly one at that."

Calandra returned to her addition and subtraction. Paithan subsided good-naturedly back into his chair.

I might have known, he reflected, that if Calandra'd hire a human at all the girl'd be some little pig-faced wretch. That's sisterly love for you. Ah, well, I'll be on the road soon and then what dear Cal doesn't know won't hurt her.

Paithan rocked, his sister muttered, the fans whirred contentedly.