"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

does. I sometimes wonder if the midwife switched babies with someone else when she was born. She
doesn't seem anything like either of us, and believe me, I have tried to find common ground with her."
"I know what you mean," Skan replied with chagrin. "Although Keenath affects me more that way
than Tadrith does. Still. Just because we've never seen either of them act the way we did at their age, it
doesn't follow that they wouldn't. If you understand what I'm trying to say."
"I think so." Amberdrake picked his way over a rough spot in the trail before continuing. "Children
tend to act differently around their parents than when they're on their own. At least, that's what I've
observed, both professionally and nonprofessionally."
Of course he wouldn't remember himself being that way; he lost his own parents and all his
family when he was hardly fledged. But he's right; I went out of my way to be the opposite of
mine. They never wanted to be anything but followers, and I wanted to be the one others looked
to for leadership. Sometimes I wonder if they weren't smarter than I was. "I wish we had some
other way besides the teleson to keep track of them," he fretted. "It's very tempting to wish that Urtho
was here to give us another Kechara...."
He couldn't finish the sentence; the pang of loss he felt even when mentioning the name of the creator
of his adoptive "daughter" was enough to still his voice for a moment.
"It's more than tempting to wish she was the way she used to be," Amberdrake sighed, "and not just
because she'd be useful now. I'd gladly continue all the evasion and diplomatic garbage we had to
concoct for the Haighlei if it meant she was still such a powerful Mindspeaker. She is such a cheerful little
soul, though; I don't miss her powers at all if it means we get to see her alive and happy."
Kechara had been one of Urtho's rare "mistakes," although Skan had never discovered what his
leader, mentor, and friend had intended when he created her. Had she simply been a first attempt at the
"gryfalcon" type, of which Zhaneel was the outstanding example? Was it possible that she had been a
deliberate attempt to create a gryphon with tremendous ability at mind-magic? Or had she simply been a
"sport," something Urtho had not intended at all, an accident that Urtho saw and carried through, then hid
away for her own protection?
Whichever the case had been, little Kechara had been what the other gryphons referred to as a
"misborn." Severely stunted, slightly misshapen, with wings far too long for her dwarfed body, her mind
had been frozen in an eternally childlike state. But her pure strength at mind-magic had been without
equal. Adorable little Kechara had been able to reach her mind-voice as far away as the Haighlei capital
of Khimbata, which was how she had discovered where Amberdrake and Skandranon had been made
prisoners long ago. The madman Hadanelith and his two Haighlei allies had captured them in the last
stage before the attempted assassination of Emperor Shalaman during the Eclipse Ceremony. Without
Kechara, Skandranon would never have been able to get away in time to save him, and Amberdrake
most certainly would not even be alive at this moment. Impelled by danger to him that even she had been
able to perceive, her mental "shout" had sundered magical shields and incapacitated Hadanelith's two
allies across all that distance.
Urtho had known just how powerful her abilities were, and had kept her close-confined in his
Tower for safekeeping. He had known that she might be viewed as a prize to be captured or a weapon
to be used, and had thought to protect her from that fate. But in confining her, he had assumed that she
would not live very long, an assumption that had proved incorrect.
Skan shook his head. "I agree. And I also know that I would never want to take the chance that
another one with worse problems than hers might be bornтАФwe just don't have the skill and judgment that
Urtho did. We all love her, but Kechara's flaws were too high a price to pay for her gifts, objectively
speaking. Quite frankly, I think that it is only because she still doesn't understand most of what she saw in
other people's minds that she hasn't been driven mad by it all."
He had done his best to make certain she never lost her trusting natureтАФand so had Judeth, Aubri,
and anyone else in White Gryphon who ever came into contact with her. In her turn, she served the city
and its people faithfully and joyously. She carefully relayed messages she barely, if ever, understood to
and from all of the Silvers with even a touch of mind-magic of their own. It was a task they had all tried