"Mercedes Lackey - Bardic Voices 4 - Four and Twenty Blackbirds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Four & Twenty Blackbirds
Mercedes Lackey
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are
fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright ┬й 1997 by Mercedes Lackey

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any
form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-87853-0

Cover art by Darrell K. Sweet

First printing, December 1997


Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lackey, Mercedes.
Four & twenty blackbirds / by Mercedes Lackey.
p. cm. тАФ (Bardic voices ; bk. 4)
"A Baen books original"тАФT.p. verso
ISBN 0-671-87853-0
I. Title. II. Series: Lackey, Mercedes. Bardic voices ; bk. 4.
PS3562.A246F68 1997 97-29672
813'.54тАФdc21 CIP

Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
 Chapter One
Rain, cold rain, as icy as only a midwinter night could make it, dripped despairingly into the dismal
streets of the city of Haldene. It should have cleansed the pavements, but instead it left them looking slick
and oily; glistening with a dubious sheen, but not clean. There was a single lamp burning outside a
warehouse two doors down, but although the flame burned bravely, it did little to illuminate anything
beyond the immediate area of the door it hung above. The rain soaked through everything; the piles of
refuse waiting for the rag-picker beside each warehouse and tavern door, Tal Rufen's waxed cape and
the woolen coat beneath itтАФ
тАФthe limp and lifeless body of the street-singer at his feetтАФ
More wavering light from his storm-lantern moved uncertainly across her pale cheek and gave her a
cheating semblance of life. She sprawled in a strange, contorted snarl of limbs and wet garments, lying