"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 08 - A Time Of Justice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

brand burnt into her mind, that she knew the vision for a true one. Yet even if he'd been close by, there
was nothing she could say to him, no warning she could deliver. Mentioning such an evil omen to a man
might well bring it about, just by planting the thought in his mind that he was doomed. She could only try
to protect him as best she might when the event came upon him.

At the moment she could spare little time for worrying about the man she once had loved and still
considered a friend. Her real work was guarding the city by reinforcing a peculiar sort of battlement
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round it. In the brightening dawn servants were hurrying round the ward far below on their various
errands, and from their barracks the warband strolled out, yawning and stretching, occasionally looking
up her way, but the dun had seen enough dweomer by now to put up with her standing on the tops of
towers and doing odd things. She walked into the centre of the circular roof and focused her mind on the
blue light of the etheric.

It seemed that the bright sunlight round her faded and a different light rose, dim and silvery, though
through it she could clearly see the physical world. In this bluish flux she raised her arms high and called
upon the power of the Holy Light that stands behind all the shadowy figures and personified forces that
men call gods. Its visible symbol came to her in a glowing spear that pierced her from head to foot. For a
moment she stood motionless, paying it homage, then stretched her arms out shoulder high, bringing the
light with them to form a shaft across her chest. As she stood within the cross, the light swelled,
strengthening her, then slowly faded of its own will.

When it was gone, she lowered her arms, then visualized a sword of light in her right hand. Once the
image lived apart from her will, she circled the roof, walking deosil, and used the sword to draw a huge
ring of golden light in the sky. As the ring settled to earth, it sheeted out, forming a burning wall round the
entire town of Cengarn. Three times round she went, until the wall lived on the etheric of its own will. At
each ordinal point, she put a seal in the shape of a five-pointed star made of blue fire. After the sigils of
the kings of the elements blazed at the four directions, she spread the light until it was not a ring but an
enormous sphere of gold, roofing over the dun and the town both and extending down under them as
well. Two last seals at zenith and nadir, and Cengarn hung in the many-layered worlds like a bubble in
glass.

At the end of the working, she withdrew the force from the image of the sword, dissolving it, then
stamped three times on the roof. Sunlight brightened round her, and she could hear the sounds of the dun,
shut out earlier by sheer concentration. The portion of the sphere above the earth, however, remained
visible тАФthat is, visible to someone with dweomer sight. Such sight could never penetrate the glowing
shell, and everyone inside the sphere would be safe from prying eyes as well as from spirits sent by their
enemies.

Before she left, she made one last attempt to find Rhodry. This time, nothing - not one scrap of vision,
not the slightest sense of place. With a shake of her head, she went down to the noise and bustle of the
great hall, where men talked in low voices of matters of war.

Rhodry was at that moment flying south from the Roof of the World on dragonback, which is not the
smoothest sort of travelling in the world. Each wing beat thrust Arzosah forward in a rolling motion, at
times close to a jump, especially when she was gaining height. Sitting on her neck or shoulder felt like