"Mercedes Lackey - Last Herald Mage 3 - Magic's Price" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Gotten quieter, more focused inside himself. Doesn't even talk to anybody about himself
anymore, not even Savil. Medren frowned a little. Uncle Van isn't doing himself any favors,
isolating himself like that.
Vanyel had the kind of fine-boned, ascetic face that aged well, with no sign of wrinkling except
around the eyes and a permanent worry-line between his brows. His once-black hair was thickly
streaked with white, but that wasn't from age, that was from working magic with what he and his aunt,
Herald-Mage Savil, called "nodes." Medren had gathered from Vanyel's complicated explanations that
these node-things were collecting points for magical energy - and that they were infernally hard to deal
with.
For whatever reason, the silver-streaked hair, when combined with the ageless face and a body
that would have been the envy of most of Medren's peers, made Vanyel's appearance confusing - even
to those who knew him. Young - old, and hard to categorize.
Add eyes the color of burnished silver, eyes that seemed to look right through a person, and you
had the single most striking Herald in Whites. . . .
Medren frowned again. And the least approachable.
His nephew guessed that Vanyel had been purposefully learning how to control his expressions
completely in the same way a Bard could. Probably for some of the same reasons. Not even a flicker of
eyelid gave his thoughts away; over the past couple of years control had become complete. Even
Medren, who knew him about as well as anyone, never knew what was running through his mind unless
Van wanted him to know.
Vanyel was as beautiful as a statue carved from the finest alabaster by the hand of a master. But
thanks to that absolute control, he was also about as remote and chill as that same statue.
Which is the way he wants it, Medren sighed. Or at least, that's what he says. "I can't
afford hostages," he says. 'I can't let anyone close enough to be used against me." He doesn't even
like having people know that he and I are as friendly as we are-and we're related. He thinks it
makes me a target. . . .
There actually had been at least one close scrape, toward the end of the Tashir affair. Medren
hadn't realized how close that scrape had been until long after, in his third year at Bardic. And in some
ways, Van was absolutely right, in that he couldn't afford close emotional relationships. If he'd been the
marble statue he resembled, his isolation would likely have been a good thing.
But he wasn't. He was a living human being, and one who would not admit that he was
desperately lonely.
To the lowest hells with that. If he doesn't find somebody he can at least talk to besides Savil,
he's going to go mad in white linen one of these days. He's keeping everyone else sane, but who can he
go to?
Nobody, that's who. Medren gritted his teeth. Well, we'll see about that, uncle. If you can
resist Stef, you're a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera the Immaculate.
They left the Palace itself, and followed a graveled path toward the separate building housing the
Bardic Collegium; a three-storied, gray stone edifice. The first floor held classrooms, the second, the
rooms of such Bards as taught here, and the third, the rooms of the apprentices and Journeymen about to
be made Masters. There were only two of the latter, himself and Stefen. Some might have objected to
being roomed with Stef, for the younger boy was shaych, and made no bones about it - but not Medren.
Not with Vanyel for an uncle, Medren reflected, with tolerant amusement. Not that Stefs
anything like Van. If uncle's a candidate for the Order of Saint Thiera, Stefs a candidate for the
Order of the Brothers of Perpetual Indulgence! No wonder he writes good lovesongs; he's
certainly had enough experience!
One of the brown-tunicked Bardic apprentices passed them, laboring under a burden of four or
five instruments. They stepped off the path long enough to let her pass; her eyes widened at the sight of
Vanyel, and she swallowed and sketched a kind of salute as they passed by her. Van didn't notice, but
Medren did; he winked at her and returned it.