"Jane Lindskold - Lord Demon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lindskold Jane)

The lightning chased me down the Pakpao's string and filled my body. I sent it back into the sky, released the string, and
clapped my hands. The lightning returned whence it had come and the cloud blew apart.
"Kai Wren! I did not do it, my friend," Li Piao cried, limping near.
"I know that," I said, rather puzzled by his words.
"It was a magician hidden in the cloud who tried to slay you."
"You know something of these matters?" I asked.
"I studied the Art in my youth. I did not know such a stroke could be returned."
"Was it a human or a demon sorcerer?" I asked him.
"Human," he said. "I'm sorry you have such an enemy."
I shrugged.
"It will make life interesting," I said.
"You are not afraid?"
I laughed.
"May I ask," he said after a moment, "whether you are related to the potter and bottlemaker?"
"Yes," I said softly.
"Years ago, in Canton, I saw such a bottle," he said. "I have never forgotten its hue and its beauty. Do you think it possib
might see another one day, before I die?"
"Yes," I said. "You may."
He lowered himself to the ground before me. Fortunately, most of our students were at such a distance that they could n
this humble displayтАФand those who did surely dismissed it as the old man stretching his crippled limbs.
"Kai Wren is also known as Lord Demon," he said.
"How do you know this?"
"As I told you, in my youth I studied the Art."
"Rise up," I said, oddly miffed that my quiet venture into the world of humans should now be colored by demon things. "I
asked nothing of you but the friendship of kites. I will treat you now, and then we will go to eat,"
 After a few words on the wisdom of watching the weather, I dismissed the class. Then I completed Li Piao's cure and to
him home with me. It was times like this when I really missed O'Keefe. My first new friend in years, and he had to settle f
less than the best hospitality. . . .
Entering my bottle did not upset Li Piao; neither did an encounter with Shiriki and Chamballa. He patted them both, strok
the curls of their manes.
"This one," he said of Shiriki, "is the color of Imperial jade. The other might be made out of dark amber or perhaps carne
had always thought the carvings of fu dogs fanciful rather than representative."
"Live and learn," I answered, but I was pleased. The dogs wagged their tails.
After we left the dogs, we walked to my palace. Unlike a Western edifice, the structure did not dominate the landscape,
rather complemented it. I had lavished a great deal of care on its construction, curling each pagoda roof by hand in wet cla
before setting my magic to work.
Seeing it sprawled in the rise and fall of the land, catching rainbows and waterfalls in its curves, Li Piao said nothing, but
eyes shone among their wrinkled folds. I escorted him up broad stairs shaped from polished water agate and through an
intricately carved door leafed in gold.
Once we were situated in a comfortable parlor, I let some of the bottle's better servitors prepare a meal.
Afterward, we sipped tea and listened to music.
"Li Piao," I said, "you seem a happy man."
"I am, Lord Demon," he stated. "My family is grown, and they have turned out well enough. I was a sufficiently successf
food merchant to support them so that they did not want. I had a little time for studies, some good friends in their day, and
the kites. It has not been a bad life. This is why I did not fear visiting with a demon."
"Yet you feel that your life was somewhat incomplete?"
"All men do," he said, "that is part of being . . . human. Sorry."
"Do not apologize for being human. No. I could not help noticing that while your family loves you, they do not have enoug
time even for their own families. I wondered whether you were sometimes lonely."
"Oh, of course. But that is all right. It makes our times together that much sweeter."