"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 1 - Harrowing of Gwynedd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

"ButтАФRhys would never give this up. Not to anyone. Not unlessтАФ"
Convulsively he clutched the medal harder in his hand as the implication
registered. Now he thought he knew why Evaine had wanted him to stand
precisely here, in the center of the new Portal, before he opened the pouch. For
something had happened to RhysтАФhe feared the younger Healer was
deadтАФand reading that tragic message here, in this place, would send up a
psychic beacon for one of them to come back to get him.
 He had to blink back tears as he tucked the empty pouch into the top of his
scrip and then smoothed the silk cord over the back of his hand, trying not to
look at the medal, now that he had an inkling of what it bore. Just in time, he
realized that Tiernan was still watching, awed even by Queron's reaction thus
far; and he signalled with an impatient gesture that Tiernan should leave.
The monk backed out without demur, quietly closing the door through the
screen before padding off through another door that probably led to the
sacristy. Only when Queron was certain he was alone did he allow himself to
look at the medallion again.
Rhys Thuryn's Healer's medallion. This time, the arms and badge were
uppermost, but that did not change the foreboding now lurking all around
Queron's consciousness. Nor would further delay soften the medal's message.
Drawing a deep, centering breath as he laid his hand over the silver, Queron
closed his eyes and triggered the spell set there. It was even worse than he had
dreamed. Briefly, he sensed the psychic signatures imprinted there at the time
Rhys received itтАФ Dom Emrys and another, unknown to Queron.
But then, all the psychic impact of Rhys' deathтАФplus the slaughter at Trurill
and the slaying of Alister Cullen and JebediahтАФcame punching through any
resistance he might have tried to raise, relentless in all the detail he must
know, in order to survive.


***


Evaine nibbled at the end of her quill and glanced aside as the infant sleeping
in the basket at her elbow stirred. The list she had been working on all
afternoon was mostly completeтАФwell, it was a good working draftтАФbut she
wished again that Rhys were here to help her. She missed him more and more
with every day that passed.
God, what a splendid team they had made! Looking across the table to the
chair that once had been his, she could almost see him gazing back at her, the
amber eyes a little amused at her acclaim, the fingers of one tapered Healer's
hand lifting in a light-hearted gesture of self-deprecation. The scholar's training
and the eye for detail had been hersтАФand the skill with languagesтАФbut it was
he who had brought that unique gift of intuitive logic, that knack that often cut
through layers of artifice that might have taken her weeks or even months to
fathom. Sifting through the ancient records on her list would have been a joy,
with Rhys at her side.
But Rhys was not at her side; nor would he ever be again, except in her
dreams. The little daughter beginning to squirm and coo in the basket would
never know her father, for he had died a week before her birth. Though he had
been among the greatest Healers of his age, Rhys Thuryn had died for no better