"Jean Lorrah - Savage Empire 05 - Sorcerers of the Frozen Isles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lorrah Jean)

Although he had explained that Reading took no physical energy, Torio did accept a bed and went up to
it early, for he had messages to deliver.

To cover the distances he must now Read, Torio had to leave his body. Had his training at the Academy
proceeded normally, at his age he would be undertaking such an exercise occasionally, under the
guidance of a teacher. The events of the past two years, however, had required him to Read over
distances so often that leaving his body had become commonplace.

He smoothed the bed and lay down carefully, positioned so that his circulation could not be cut off while
his body was unoccupied. Then he allowed his "self to drift upward.

Immediately, his Reading took on a clarity possible only when the flesh was left behind. No longer did he
have to visualize the world deliberately; it was all there, without effort and without restriction.

He Read outward from the stonecutter's cottage, searching for signs of further danger. A few miles down
the road there was an inn, where local farmers sometimes stopped for a cup of ale at this time of day.
That's all they wereтАФfarmers, the innkeeper, and his wife and three daughters, one of them flirting with a
local farm lad.

But there were no strangers, no travelers, and no one with a worry in his head except the boy wondering
if the girl he favored cared for him, or whether she acted this way with other customers.

Ignoring the inn, Torio scanned the fields, empty or emptying. Nothing more sinister there than rabbits
and field mice. Nor did the woodlands harbor people, except for a woodcutter who lived there and a
patrol of Wulfston's foresters out to see that no one took deer out of season.

Then where had their attackers come from?
As Morgone said, there was no widespread dissatisfaction among Wulfston's people. Only the bandits
who preyed on travelers were unhappy that the new Lord of the Land did not take the attitude of
Drakonius, who had ignored them as long as they did not interfere with his plans for conquest.

Wulfston's first impulse had been to give the bandits fair warning to mend their waysтАФand then wipe out
the ones who refused to turn to farming, hunting, woodcutting, or other honest occupation. However, too
many outlaws were distrustful, having suffered many years of Drakonius' unpredictability. Furthermore,
they considered this new lord, with his preference for alliance over conquest, to be dangerously
weakтАФeasy prey for the next Drakonius.

Over the nearly two years of Wulfston's reign, though, he had made the main roads safe. Many outlaws
had decided that the risks of being caught now that there were Readers in the land outweighed the risks
of pledging loyalty to the new lord. The rest moved northward, out of the area ruled by the alliance of
Adepts and Readers who called their union the Savage Empire.

It was not Torio who had persuaded Wulfston not to track down all the outlaws and summarily execute
them. It was Jareth, his chief adviser from among his newly inherited people, who had pointed out that
under Drakonius' rule many, many people had been so plundered as to be left with little choice except to
prey on others to survive. While the majority had returned gratefully to honest work at Wulfston's
invitation, there were enough suspicious ones that nearly everyone had kin or friend still outlaw.
Wholesale slaughter of the hill bandits might well have turned hesitantly loyal followers against Wulfston
once again.