"Kate Forsyth - Eileanan 01 - The Witches Of Eileanan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forsyth Kate)

Tabithas the Keybearer disappeared and the Towers were brought down."

Isabeau listened, but most of this story she had heard before and paid little attention to. "I still do
no' understand," she said. "What about the Banr├мgh?"

"It seems she must be a powerful and subtle sorceress, to win the R├мgh's heart so easily and then
to turn him against the Coven so quickly. Jaspar had always loved the Coven and he has Talent
himselfтАФhe canna have been made to act so without a very strong compulsion. Then, when the Red
Guards stormed the Tower o' Two Moons, Maya was there, giving the orders and making sure they
were carried out. Tabithas went to confront her, and ye must remember, Tabithas was Keybearer,
the strongest witch in the land."

"So what happened?"

"We do no' ken. Tabithas disappeared. We never saw her again, though I searched everywhere
for her, and called to her with my mind, but to no avail. Later the R├мgh said she had been banished,
but Tabithas was never one to do what others said she should. She was as proud as her wolf, and
as slow to forgive an insult. She would never have accepted such a sentence meekly. Somehow
Maya must have overcome her, though whether it was by craft or cunning, I do no' know."

"She overcame ye, too, did she no'?" Seychella said, with an ironic inflection in her voice.

"Did she? Really?" Isabeau asked.

"We could not withstand so many soldiers," Meghan responded obliquely. "I had to get Ishbel
away, and Maya and that servant o' hers thought to try and stop me. I opened the earth at their feet
and watched them plunge into the abyss, yet only moments later both were at my heels again. That is
no ordinary power."

"And she bends others to her will," Seychella said. "That is her real crime. It's more than just
compulsion, too, for she does it to crowds o' people at a time."

"But why? If she is a witch, why does she want to destroy other witches?"

"And no' just witches," Meghan said. "She is destroying all the magical creatures as well."

"Nobody kens why." Seychella said. "The black-hearted witch seems to ken all our secrets and all
our movements, but we ken nothing about her. She says she was born in Carraig, but all our
questions have not found out where or when, nor who her parents are. She truly is the Unknown."

"And so did she .. . cast a spell on the Righ?" Isabeau asked stumblingly, not sure she understood.

"Whether it is the working o' enchantment or merely the spell o' love, all we ken is the R├мgh grows
daily more weary, and Maya now openly sits in council and judgment, and orders the soldiers,"
Meghan replied. She looked tired, her thin body slumping in the chair.

"And by E├а's green blood, she had something to do with the disappearance o' the three
prionnsachan or I be no witch!" Seychella exclaimed.

Isabeau's eyes rounded. She had been a young girl, around four, when the three young