"Fancher, Jane - Rings 2 - Ring Of Intrigue" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fancher Jane S)

beneath his middle-class clothing.
Deymorin found something profoundly disturbing about
city constables taking orders from such an anonymous
source.
But there was no sign of the green-and-gold uniforms
he'd thought he'd seen in Mikhyel's mind, colors that he
associated with Lidye Fericci dunTarimnow Lidye
romNikeanor.
"What's this all about?" Nikki, flanked by two men, ap-
peared from a side tunnel down which their horses had
been stabled. His voice held the shrill edge of adolescent
nerves. "Do you know who I am?"
Deymorin heard Mikhyel's soft groan, and Deymorin
thought, or perhaps it was Mikhyel's thought: Not now,
brother.
"I know who this man says you are, boy." The leader's
eyes ran rudely over Nikki's rumpled figure, over clothing
that had been a dandy's pride this morning, before wild
rides through storms and horses that needed grooming had
taken their ruthless toll.
"Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric," the leader said, refer-
ring ostentatiously to the gatekeeper's note. "The third I've
arrested this week."
"Third?" Nikki repeated and biinked, the arrogance fad-
ing. "What are you talking about?"
"Surely you don't believe you're the only one to hear the
rumors that the Lady Lidye's husband survived the valley
holocaust? I will say, you're the most complete group of
imposters we've arrested so far. I don't suppose you have
your papers. No? The Rhomandi seal ring, perhaps?" The
man's brows rose expectantly, his gaze moving again from
one to the other of them.
In vain, as it happened. The family ring to which he
referred had surely melted, along with the Mauritumin
hand illegally bearing it, in a blast of ley-induced lightning.
That "holocaust" to which this fellow so blithely referred.
The Boreton Turnout had been a horror, but the devasta-
tion had been exceedingly localized. And this official was
calling it a holocaust? One did have to wonder at the
sources of the rumors and the panic, when officials were
using such language in the presence of ordinary citizens.
But Deymorin held his peace. There were procedures for
them to go through, papers to fill out . . . hell, they'd send to
the Tower for someone to come identify them and have their
release authorized by the time they finished those forms.
The leader referred again to the gatekeeper's notes. "It
says here that you are the Rhomandi, Deymorin, dun-
Mheric, Princeps of Rhomatum. That this woman is Kiyr-
stine romGaretti, first wife of Garetti of Mauritum, and
that these are your brothers, Mikhyel and Nikaenor, both