"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 01 - Sorcery Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

the kitchens, and once in his own studyтАФfires which gave off noxious fumes and left
behind in their ashes scraps of charred hide and stinking hair; roots and tubers, claws and
teeth, and little bits of bone. Which had been alarming, to say the least, since the only
other occupants of Sanctuary, to Virelai's sure knowledge, were himself and the Master's
familiar, a black cat he called B├лte. And things had been disappearing, too: scrolls and
parchments, tomes of magic, journals, and notebooks gone from the library; collections of
plants and vials taken from the herbarium, torn down in such a hurry that dried leaves
and flowers were left scattered on the ground, smashed underfoot along with shards of
pottery and dried smears of something that looked suspiciously like blood. And in the
curiositar, the chamber in which Rahe kept his most prized objectsтАФrow upon row of
specimens (fine crystals, cut and uncut; rocks of every size and shape and hue; ores and
metals and gems, all labeled with their names and magical properties; artfully-worked
figurines and jewelry, knives and swords, spearheads and arrows, as well as many items
mysteriously unnamed and defying any attempt he could make to categorize them) all
elegantly arrayed under the thinnest sheets of translucent ice (no doubt to prevent his
clumsy apprentice from laying his grubby hands upon them)тАФwhere there had been the
most exquisite order, now there was a chaos of destruction. Nothing, it seemed, had been
left intact. The artifacts were broken and twisted; the stones and metals fused together
into a horrible, misshapen lump with what must have taken an immense blast of
spellcraft. Even the great wired skeleton of a beast that Rahe called the Draco of Farem
had been torn asunder and strewn around the chamber as if in a giant's fit of rage.
Virelai could only deduce that the Master had caused this terrifying destruction, but to
what purpose, he could not imagine. And if the Master had at last gone completely mad,
then how long could it be before he began to vent his murderous spleen upon his
companions?
So now, as he stood at the dark threshold, panting after the long climb up the narrow,
winding stairs, feeling the cold air leeching his body heat away and the hot breath of the
mage on the back of his neck, Virelai thought seriously about taking to his heels. But just
as he felt the first tremor of his intent to flee run through his thin frame, the Master
clicked his fingers and a pale blue fire limned the chamber, revealing the oddest sight
Virelai had seen in all his twenty-nine years in this odd place.
In the center of the chamber lay a huge oval bowl of light; and inside it lay what he
could only describe as a world. Clouds floated over expanses of blue and green and
brownтАФoceans and islands, lakes and continents. SunshineтАФfrom no source that could be
determined from this vantage pointтАФlined the clouds with burnished gold and rose and
cast moving shadows over land and sea alike. Virelai gasped. He took a step closer.
 "Touch nothing, boy!" Rahe placed a restraining hand on Virelai's shoulder.
For once, Virelai did not bridle at the term, so entranced was he by the sight before
him. "What magic is this, Master?"
The mage made no reply. Instead he reached beyond his apprentice and pulled on a
cord. There was an abrupt change in the light in the chamber, and when Virelai stared up,
he saw that a great contraption of levers and pulleys and crystals had been constructed
around the open top of the ice tower. Where the sun struck the crystals, prismatic beams
shot down at a myriad of angles into the bowl, and as the angles changed, so did the view.
And where before there had been oceans and swaths of land seen from the greatest
distance, now Virelai found himself staring down into a more intimate landscapeтАФrooftops
of wood and turf, cows and sheep dotted over steep pastures, people like insects scurrying
about their tasks. A gull slid past in a flash of white and involuntarily Virelai shied away.
"The island-kingdom of Eyra," the Master declared. He pulled another lever and the
ground swarmed up toward Virelai with dizzying speed. Children ran laughing across a