"Dance of the Rings 2 - Ring of Intrigue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

ment to be risked through carelessness or abuse.
Still, any man appreciated endorsement, especially from
a higher authority, a position these men had seemed deter-
mined to set upon him from the moment he'd challenged
the gatekeeper and won.
He wouldn't object, if it eased their minds; still, he gave
them his first name only, as was his habit with strangers,
having learned that the Rhomandi title tended to build a
wall between himself and others. And thanks to his parents'
choice of name for their firstborn, "Deymorin" was a fairly
common name among Rhomatumin men of his age.
Besides, he had no time or energy to waste in explana-
tions. Princeps he'd been: the Rhomandi, patriarch of the
Rhomandi Family. For thirteen yearsuntil his youngest
brother's marriage to Lidye dunTarim of Shantum Node.
Now, according to their great-aunt Anheliaa, eldest living
Rhomandi, Ringmaster of Rhomatum, and one evil-smelling
breath short of her long-overdue death and immersion,
seventeen-year-old Nikki, youngest of the Rhomandi broth-
ers, was Princeps, because she had chosen Nikki's wife as
her replacement in Rhomatum Tower.
Some situations in life truly defied explanation. Far sim-
pler to let these men draw their own assumptions regarding
their companions in adventure.
They'd been lucky. Despite the panic, none of the horses
had been badly injured. Bumps and scrapes mostly: The
worst they'd had to deal with was a fear-induced colic in an
overbred, overgrained saddle horse, who'd come in at the last
minute. Even that crisis had been solved by more than half
when they shoved the horse's wild-eyed owner out the door.
Some people just never learned that self-control was the
main battle to win when dealing with horses or any other
instinct-driven creatureincluding children.
It occurred to him, as so many things reminded him now
of the past, that an uncontrolled, angry horse had killed his
fathershortly after his father had nearly killed Mikhyel.
Strange, to gain such an intimate perspective about a
parent, so long after that parent's death. Hard not to want
to make up for Mheric's cruelty to Mikhyel. Harder to re-
member that Mikhyel was no longer the bruised and bro-
ken child they had pulled from a closet the day Mheric
died, and that the man Mikhyel had become might well
resent such a gesture.
Limestone arched overhead in capricious curves. An-
cient, massive . . . and as beautiful and natural as the water
and ley that had created them.
Some people found these old stables and the entire un-
derground city to be oppressive, even frightening; Dey-
morin loved them. The land beneath Rhomatum was a vast
honeycomb of huge caverns, and tiny eddy-formed niches.