"Mercedes Lackey - Mage Storms 1 - Storm Warning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

He decided that he had stewed enough in the hot water; any more, and he was
going to look like cooked meat. There were no helpful little hertasi here in Valdemar
to attend to oneтАЩs every need - a fact Firesong complained of bitterly - but AnтАЩdesha
had grown up in an ordinary ShinтАЩaтАЩin Clan on the Plains. That was a place where if a
person did not do things for himself - unless he was incapacitated and needed help -
they did not get done. He had brought his own towels and robes to leave beside the
pool, with extras for Firesong when he should reappear, and made use of those now.
This hot pool was the mirror image of a cold one on the other side of the garden. It
had a smooth backrest of sculptured rock, taller than the userтАЩs head; hot water
welled up from a place in the center of the pool, and a waterfall showered cooler
water down from above, from an opening at the top of the backrest. The whole was
surrounded by screening тАЬtreesтАЭ and curtains of vines; Firesong did not particularly
care if someone wandered by and got an eyeful, but AnтАЩdesha was not so
uninhibited.
FiresongтАЩs white firebird flew gracefully across the garden room as he climbed out
of the pool and dried himself off. It landed beside the smaller, cooler pool that
supplied the waterfall, in a bowl Firesong had built for it to bathe in. It plunged in with
the same enthusiasm as the humblest sparrow, sending water splashing in all
directions as it flapped and rolled in the shallow rock basin. When it finally emerged
from its bath, it looked terrible, as if it had some horrible feather disease, and its
wings were so soaked it could scarcely fly. It didnтАЩt even bother to try; it just hopped
up onto a higher perch to preen itself dry with single-minded concentration.
Hawkbrothers usually had specially-bred raptors as bondbirds, but in this, as in all
else, Firesong was an exception.
AnтАЩdesha got along quite well with the bird, whose name was Aya; especially after
he had coaxed some berrybushes the bird particularly craved to grow, blossom, and
bear fruit out of season in this garden. Aya was happy here; he did not seem to miss
the Vales at all.
Even the firebird felt more at home here than he did.
He recognized the fact that he was feeling sorry for himself, and he didnтАЩt much
care. The firebird paused in its preening, as if it had read his thoughts, and gave him
a look of complete disgust before shaking out its wet tail and turning its back on him.
Well, let it. The firebird had never had its body taken over by a near-immortal entity
of pure filth, had it?
He dried his hair and wrapped himself up in his thick robe, then went off to one
part of the garden he considered his very own.
In the southwestern corner of the garden, near the window, he had planted a row
of trees screening a mound of grass off from the rest of the garden. In that tiny patch
of lawn he had pitched a very small tent, tall enough to stand in, but no wider than the
spread of his arms. It wasnтАЩt quite a ShinтАЩaтАЩin tent, and it certainly wasnтАЩt
weatherproof, but that hardly mattered since it was always summer in this garden.
Here, at least, he could fling himself down on a pallet, look up at a roof of canvas,
and see something that resembled home. And as long as he made no sound, there
was no way to know whether or not the tent was occupied. Firesong had made no
comment about the tent, perhaps understanding that he needed it, even as Firesong
needed some semblance of a Vale.
A strand of his own damp white hair tangled itself up in his fingers as he pushed
open the tent flap, and he shook it loose impatiently. White hair - he looked
Tayledras. Just as Tayledras as Firesong or Darkwind. There was no way that
anyone would know he was ShinтАЩaтАЩin unless he told them. Was there a reason for