"Fancher, Jane - Rings 1 - Ring Of Lightning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

invisible currents, twisting, rubbing, chafing . . .
Deep within the heart of Mount Khoratum, in a leythium-
draped chamber deeper than the deepest human mines,
Mother laughed, revelling in the flow of pure energy that
slithered tingling tendrils across her skin, and for a time, it
was sensuality alone that dictated her moves, that drove
her to keep that brewing storm contained.
It is an ancient, elemental ritual, this periodic convergence
of power, frustration, and obstinacy; a ritual compelled by
laws as primordial as the earth herself toward its inevitable
resolution:
Lightning arced between clouds.
"Oo-oo-oo ..." Mother shivered in victorious ecstasy.
"Yes!"
On the mountain's surface, midway between leythium
cave and lightning cloud, in the Tower overlooking the
human-built city called Khoratum, in a chamber where the
seven leythium-coated rings of Khoratum spun solemnly
about their common centerthe Khoratum free radical
echoed that sky-born bolt with a quivering deflection of its
own sinuous path.
It was a tiny shift, a disturbance only the most observant
would note: the radical (an amorphous streamer of pure
leythium that skipped and danced freely among its more
rigid cousins) was prone to random motion. A tiny distur-
bance, but significant. A power fluxtiny, but significant
that only a most Talented human ringmaster could correct
. . . without consumer awareness.
Visible to no one within that notably empty room, bane-
ful energy sizzled along the radical, arced from radical
streamer to the outermost Cardinal Ring. The Cardinal
shuddered, its heartbeat-regular rhythm faltered, and the
energy mote leapt inward, disrupting the painstakingly
aligned orbits of Khoratum Tower's rings one by one.
On the innermost, it paused as if savoring its triumph,
then penetrated the central sphere itself. "The scintillating
orb flared, a momentary localized nova extending well be-
yond the Cardinal's radius, then faded to lightless black.
The rings faltered and tumbled to the tiled floor.
Lights within the embryonic city blossoming ripplewise
from the Tower's baseflickered and died.
Sirens sounded. Briefly.
Unchecked, the mote fled the Tower and skipped trium-
phantly along city streets vacant on this fearsome afternoon
and midnight-dark between stormy skies and mountain
shadows. It slithered sullenly past wattle and daub huts
aglow with light, oil lamps impervious to the mote's pres-
ence, then flowed like spring rain runoff along the leyline,
down the mountain pass toward the fertile Rhomatum
Valley.