"Katherine Kurtz - Adept 01 - The Adept" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

"Peregrine? What's the matter?" Adam asked sharply.
The young artist started slightly at the sound of his name, eyes screwed to mere slits behind his glasses,
and looked hastily at the ground.
"I don't think I ought to have come here," he said softly.
He swayed on his feet and staggered backwards. Swiftly Adam sprang to his side and guided him to a seat
on a block of stone at the edge of the clearing.
"Whyever not?" he demanded.
"It's this cursed, bloody ghost-sight of mine!" Peregrine said between gritted teeth. "If I could only blot it out -
"
"No, that's the last thing you want to do," Adam interposed with soft urgency. "Don't fight it. Don't even try to
control it for now. Just relax and let the experience run its course."
"But - "
"I said relax," Adam said. His voice this time carried a sharp note of command as he laid a hand across
Peregrine's furrowed forehead, steadying his head with the other hand behind. "Relax, Peregrine," he
repeated, more quietly. "I want you to go back into trance for me, like you did the other night. Fighting isn't
the answer. Relax. Remember your dream. RememberтАж."
Under Adam's hands and persuasion, some of the tension eased out of the younger man's taut form. His
eyes remained closed, and when he finally settled down enough to take a deep breath and let it out softly,
Adam took his hands away and moved back a step.
"That's better," he said, watching his subject closely. "Just keep your eyes closed and listen to me. Don't
you see? This is precisely why I brought you here today - to give you a chance to test out your various levels
of vision. I thought a structure would be easier than people. Before we can explore ways of selectively
controlling what you see, we need to find out what happens when you make no attempt to control it at all."
Peregrine shook his head dreamily. "I know what you're saying, but it's so - confusing. I can shut out some of
the confusion, if I look straight at whatever it is, but the images in my peripheral vision - " He paused to
swallow noisily. "Even with my eyes closed, I still see more than I should. It's like - like trying to see through
a bunch of transparencies all stacked on top of each other."
"A good analogy," Adam agreed, "but if you'll only stop struggling, the storm of images may subside of its
own accord. What did your other selves say in the dream?"
"Be still," murmured Peregrine. "Be still, and know that thou art lord of - Good God!" His eyes popped open.
"Do you think I'm causing the turbulence?" -
"There's only one way to find out," Adam said, sitting carefully on another block of stone. "Do what your other
selves told you to do. Be still. Relax and breathe deeply.
Close your eyes again for a moment, until you find your balance. Concentrate on each breath as you take it,
inтАж and outтАж."
Peregrine obeyed. His chest rose and fell. The rigid lines of tension eased in his face. After a long moment,
his fingers eased their death grip on the sketching pad.
"Good," Adam said. "Now open your eyes and draw what you see - whatever you see - just as you did that
first night in the library. It's perfectly all right."
Peregrine cracked his lids a cautious chink. Colors - green, grey, brown - shimmered giddily before him. He
took another deep, slow breath, then opened his eyes wide.
The scene in front of him flickered and flashed, oscillating between one state and another like a holographic
projection. One moment he was looking at a derelict ruin, open to the sky; the next, he was seeing a
manorial keep with its roofs and windows intact.
"Don't tense up," Adam's deep voice advised from somewhere off to his left. "You're seeing beyond the mere
physical now, and that's good. Just let the images flow."
Peregrine managed a slight nod of acquiescence. As he continued to gaze unresistingly at the castle, even a
little bit beyond the castle, the vision of a different Templemor began to stabilize, building up layer on layer.
The twin stair turrets were capped off with square overhanging garret chambers, their crow-stepped roofs
snugly overlaid with slates. The heraldic crest above the door, so badly weatherworn in the present, now