"Katherine Kurtz - Camber 3 - Camber the Heretic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

"I am ready, my friend," the bishop said softly, turning to take up the sword
from the altar before joining them beside the table. "Are you content, Cinhil?"
"Content?" He watched his friend lay the sword on the floor partly beneath
the table and again felt a flutter of apprehension which he quickly damped.
"Aye, I am content," he breathed.
As he spoke, Evaine and Rhys returned to the center of the circle and knelt
by Alroy. Cinhil watched Rhys close his eyes and take a deep breath, slipping
into his meditative state, then watched as he laid his hand on Alroy's forehead
and seemed to wait for something. Immediately, Joram, too, took a deep breath
and let himself sink into tranceтАФand Cinhil knew that they were forming the
rapport which would keep Alroy controlled through what must be done. Beyond
them, Evaine had set the charcoal to smouldering in the thurible and now
moved with her taper toward the candle standing at the foot of the altar steps,
invoking, as flame flared to life behind the amber glass, the Archangel Raphael
to guard the eastern quarter.
He noted Alister watching intently as she moved on to the south, toward
Saint Michael's candle with its ruby glass shield, apparently totally at ease now
that things were beginning. The fire blazed up crimson, then moved, golden
and pure on its white taper, to cross behind them all, where the glass shielding
Saint Gabriel's candle would turn the fire to azure.
Rhys had withdrawn his hand from Alroy's forehead now, and Joram as well,
and the boy slowly opened his eyes upon a scene which he would not
remember in the morningтАФindeed, would not remember at all until it should
become time to pass his gifting to his son. The boy's eyes were wide and slightly
glazed, registering his surroundings at some deep level but beyond his ability
to react with the fear or anxiety which he might otherwise have shown. Cinhil
knew that he was aware of his father's presence as Joram and Rhys helped him
to sit, but he knew also that he was far from the forefront of Alroy's thoughts as
the boy was made to stand easily beside the table.
Evaine had lit the last candle now, the green-shielded ward guarded by
Uriel, the Dark Archangel, but she paused just past the northern ward until
Rhys had confirmed Joram's control over his charge and then withdrawn
toward the other two sleeping boys. When he had passed through the gate she
had left, pausing to brush her lips lightly with his own, she continued on to the
east and closed the circle.
 Joram was waiting for her at the eastern quarter, the thurible smoking in
his hands as he censed her with its sweet smoke. To the ancient Psalm of the
Shepherd, he began retracing the circle she had defined, the smoke and the
echo of his words hanging tangibly in the wake of his passage and somehow
contained by the boundaries of the circle being cast. As before, the only other
time Cinhil had watched them at work, he was almost certain that the limits of
the circle now glowed.
As Joram passed between Cinhil and the watching Rhys, outside the circle
and in the northeast quarter, Cinhil was sure that there was something between
them. He continued to be sure, even when Joram had completed his circuit and
moved into the center of the circle to cense the rest of them standing there:
Cinhil himself in the east, though he was no Healer; Evaine, again standing in
the west, as she had so many years before; and the implacable Alister in the
north, where Camber once had stood. Alroy, too, was censed; and Cinhil
wondered whether the boy was experiencing any of the same emotions which