"Katherine Kurtz - The Deryni Archives" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

Primary proficiencies have to do with balances-physical, psychic, and
spiritual-and mastering one's own body and perceptions. Even without formal
instruction, most Deryni can learn to banish fatigue, at least for a while, to
block physical pain, and to induce sleep- skills that can be applied to
oneself or to others, Deryni or not, with or (often) without the conscious
cooperation of the subject, especially a human one.
Healing is another highly useful Deryni talent, though rare and requiring very
specialized training for optimum use. A properly qualified Healer, provided he
has time to engage healing rapport before his patient expires, can deal
successfully with almost any physical injury. Treatment of illnesses is
necessarily more limited, confined mainly to dealing with symptoms, since
medieval medicine has yet to understand disease mechanisms. (Physicians, both
human and Deryni, have made the connection between cleanliness and decreased
likelihood of infection, but lack the technology to discover why this is so.)
Few would take exception to the abilities we have just outlined-other than
sleep-induction, perhaps, if it were used to the detriment of a subject unable
to resist. What is far more threatening to non-Deryni is the potential use of
Deryni powers outside a healing context. For Deryni can read minds, often
without the knowledge or consent of a human subject; and they can impose their
will on others. Some exceptionally competent Deryni have even been known to
take on the shape of another person.
In actual practice, there are definite limitations to the extent of all these
abilities, though most non-Deryni have wildly exaggerated notions of what
those limitations are, if they even acknowledge their existence. And human
fears are not reassured by the fact that some Deryni can tap into energies
outside even their own understanding, consorting with powers that may defy
God's will. Fear of what is not understood becomes a major theme, then, as the
human and Deryni characters interact in the stories.
But humans did not always fear the Deryni as a race, though individual humans
may have come to fear certain individual Deryni. For centuries before the
Deryni Interregnum, especially under the consolidating rule of a succession of
benevolent Haldane kings (some of whom made discreet interaction with a few
highly ethical Deryni), Deryni were few enough and circumspect enough in their
dealings with humans that the two races lived in relative harmony. The Deryni
founded schools and religious institutions and orders, sharing their knowledge
and healing talents with anyone in need, their own internal disciplines
discouraging any gross abuse of the vast powers at their command. Certainly,
there must have been occasional incidents, for the greater powers of the
Deryni surely subjected them to greater temptations; but exclusively Deryni
outrages must have been rare, for we find no evidence of general hostility
toward Deryni before 822. In that year the Deryni Prince Festil, youngest son
of the King of Torenth, invaded from the east and accomplished a sudden coup,
massacring all the Haldane royal family except for the two-year-old Prince
Aidan, who escaped.
We can blame the ensuing Festillic regime for much of the deterioration of
human-Deryni relations after the invasion, for the Deryni followers of Festil
I were largely landless younger sons, like himself, and quickly recognized the
material gains to be had in the conquered kingdom by exploiting their Deryni
advantages. Much was shrugged off or overlooked in the early years of the new
dynasty, for any conqueror takes a while to consolidate his power and set up