"Flynn-ThePromiseOfGod" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

"The Other Way," said Greta, "is an awe-full and wonder-full power; but, wielded
too long, power blinds us to good and evil. Each time a dweorman spells, some
part of his soul is destroyed. The part that sees evil and knows to shun it.
Chirurgeons who have done autopsies report that in certain regions of the brain
the very fibers are seared, as if by an inner fire. Such a man. . . " She looked
at Nealy with loving sadness. "Such a man cannot be allowed to choose."

"The knout and the caress, eh, my dear?" Nealy grinned at his wif and rubbed
himself to show where both had been applied. "They taught me to obey Greta's
voice, they surely did." Sometimes, when he thought about spelling on his own,
his groin would ache from the memories. Sometimes, when he thought about obeying
Greta, he grew werile. "It was all done very logically." He hoped Agnes would
leave soon, so that he and Greta could beck. Perhaps he should make Agnes Go
Away. Twice, at Greta's command, he had made things Go Away. Once to a gang of
cut-throats living in the forest beyond the Swoveberg who had raped and killed a
ten-year-old girl; and once to an avalanche that had thundered down the
hillside. The latter spelling had laid Nealy up for a week, numb and shivering
in fever. He had felt as if great gulps of him had been sucked out into the very
space between the stars. It would be much less onerous to make Alice Go Away. He
looked to Greta for guidance.

But none was forthcoming. "The craeft robbed him of half himself; we robbed him
then of the other," she said sadly.

Nealy was distressed. "But I don't begrudge it, dear Gretl. With it, what a
monster I should be."

"Yes, in all innocence, unleashing horrors and boons with equal carelessness."
Greta shook herself and looked back at Alice as if she had forgotten the young
man was still there. "His choices have no moral weights, and it is urim and
thummin which he would pick." Then she rose and pointed fore- and middle finger
at the younger man. "Betruth yourself, Alice Josepha Runningdeer, that you will
not come to my were, nor any other dweorman, ever again, except through the
man's rixler."

Alice dropped to her knees and hugged Greta around the waist. "Oh, I do, I do. I
betruth myself, for good and aye."

Greta lifted her to her feet. "Then go."

Alice scurried to the door.

"Don't forget the lye soap," said Nealy. "And scrub very hard." Alice gave him
one last look of horror, then the door thudded shut behind her. Greta went to
the door and put the bar in place, shutting the world without and them within.

Nealy ran into the wood behind the shed and knelt there rubbing himself where
Gretl had struck him. Gretl was mean. All he had done was spell a spray of
flowers to show how much he liked her. That was all, a spray of red and yellow