"Lyndon Hardy - The Master of Five Magics" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hardy Lyndon)

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PART ONE

The Thaumaiurge

CHAPTER ONE The Queen Besieged

ALODAR closed his mind to the pounding of the huge stones against the lower walls of the keep. He
ignored the growl of his stomach and tried to concentrate on the spinning disk. Forty-one days of
siege, he thought, and the last five on half rations. Half rations for himself and the other
craftsmen, while the men at arms still received full shares.

"Faster, Morwin, faster until it buzzes like an angry hive," Alodar listened as the apprentice
pushed against the two-hand crank and the giant flywheel slowly increased its speed. After several
minutes, a faint tone from the serrated edge mixed with the crash of rock and cry of pain below.
Morwin stepped back from the rough wooden frame which supported the rotating wheel and sat panting
on the smooth floor of the bartizan.

"Make the rest of your preparations, journeyman," the big man in mail next to Alodar barked. "You
two may rest if this air gondola proves its worth, but not before."

Alodar disregarded the harsh tone. He squinted up at the sun midway between the east and overhead.
"They will have to look directly into the glare to see us," he said evenly. "Your men can begin."

"They begin when I tell them," the sergeant said, pushing his thumb at his chest. "You may have
once been the son of Alodun, lord of the buttes, and had the right to command, but now you are no
more than the wheelwright. I owe you only what I would give any tradesman."

Alodar spilled the air out of his nostrils in a long sigh. "My father struggled six years for the
justice due him and went to his grave alone and brokenhearted. The anguish to carry on was too
great a price to pay and I buried my feelings with him. I am a journeyman at an honest craft and
accept my lot. I desire no empty formality that stirs up the dying embers of the past."

He stopped and stared into the big man's eyes. "And I ask no more than what you should show any
man who labors in our common defense, regardless of his station." For a long moment their eyes
remained locked, but finally the sergeant shrugged and turned to the group of men crouching within
the archway into the keep. "To your positions, then," he ordered.

The men rose, and two edged out to the crenellations which framed a deep cut in the hills to the
west. The third, the smallest of the three, climbed into a waist-high wicker basket which stood by
the spinning disk.

Alodar stepped to the woven box, withdrew a chisel from one of the pockets in his cape, and hacked
a fresh splinter from it. His cowl was thrown back over his shoulders, revealing a narrow face
topped with fine yellow-brown hair. His nose and mouth were drawn with an economy of line, plain
and straight, with nothing to mark him as either handsome or uncomely. Only his eyes removed him
from the nondescript; they were bright and alive, darting like dragonflies, missing no detail of
what happened around him. His face held the smoothness of youth, now marked only by two short
furrows above his nose as he concentrated on the task before him.