"Karen Haber - Thieves' Carnival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haber Karen)

busy!" She scrambled through a doorway into the main hall. The walls were lined
with headless statues. Small indentations in the floor indicated where generations of
faithful knees had ground into the stone as their owners prostrated themselves before
their gods. At the far end of the room, a huge black glass altar glinted in the half
light.
Mouse surveyed its glittering facade hopefully, but it was all of one piece. No jewels
winked back at her from gilded settings.
"Damn! This is the logical place for it," she muttered.
Ciaran appeared from behind the altar. "Any luck?"
"No. You?" "I found a lot of creepwebs but no stone." Mouse cursed again. She
turned, looking for another door, another room, when a strange pink gleam from
above made her eyes water.

"What was that?" Ciaran stood beside her, rubbing his eyes. "I don't know. It came
from above, from the balcony, I think. There must be a staircase around here
somewhere." She cast about the hall but found no hidden arch, no handclasp to
open masked doorways. In futile search, the thieves passed their hands over the
walls.
Mouse sighed. "We'll just have to climb up." She unwound a sturdy cord from her
pouch and secured one end of it to her belt. With a deft toss, she hooked the far end
over the balcony and back upon itself. Planting her left foot firmly against the base
of a headless statue, she pushed off with her right leg and pulled herself up the rope.
Sweating, hands slipping, she made her way up and up, until she had a solid grip
upon the balustrade. Muscles straining, the little thief swung herself over the railing to
the gallery floor. With barely a moment to catch her breath, Mouse clambered to her
feet and began to search for any sign of that red-tinged flare.
Three-quarters of the way around the gallery, she spied a blue glass table. Upon it
sat a small grille, rusty with age. A neglected shrine? She reached toward it, but
before she could touch either side of the hinged metalwork a pink light flashed out
from behind the grille.
"Hsst! Mouse! Where are you?" Ciaran's urgent whisper rose up from the floor
below.
She ignored him, intent on the light behind the metal doors. Taking a deep breath,
she pried the right-hand gate of the shrine open. A small, squared gem about the size
of a knucklebone sat in a web of tarnished silver wire. Its surface flashed with red
and orange fires.
The Portal Cube! What else could it be? Mouse reached for the bauble gently and
found it came away easily. Warm to the touch, the Cube glimmered in her palm like a
dying glowstone. For a moment, Mouse felt like a robber bird, raiding a spring nest
of its prize. Then she tucked the thought away with the Cube in her pouch, wrapped
in the piece of vellum that had first decreed this crime. Mouse wanted to dance with
glee.
I've done it, she thought. By the dreams of Sacred Bas, I've stolen the fabled Portal
Cube.
She hurried to the balcony railing and waved down at her partner.
"I've got it," Mouse said. Her voice shook with excitement. "At least, I think I've
got it. It's not very big."
Ciaran peered up at her. His light hair fell back from his face. "If you think you've
got the Portal Cube, that's good enough for me. It's late. We should start ..."
Mouse lost the rest of his whisper in the clatter of shoes upon stone. There were