"Laurie Marks - Elemental Logic 03 - Water Logic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marks Laurie)

surprise but had not mattered: Seth's hands still wanted that hauntedness, that hunger. She wanted Clem.
No, the lieutenant general had said. No. And she had left with her soldiers, she had slept with them in the
barn, though Seth lay awake half the night listening for the sound of the door latch. She is a Sainnite, she
reminded herself, over and over. A SainniteтАФa monsterтАФa killerтАФa leader of monsters and killers. She
listened for the door latch, nevertheless. In the morning the soldiers had left, Clement among them, walking
across the snow, dragging sledges behind them. Seth's family went to the cow barn, fearing the worst, but
found it neater than it had been; found that the Sainnites had made their beds in straw and left the hay
alone; had molested none of the animals and had not even requested food for themselves. Never before had
Sainnites been such careful guests.
Later, there came rumors: Harald G'deon had vested a successor after all, a woman who had been living in
obscurity but now had stepped forth. She had reached through a garrison gate and nearly strangled the
general of the Sainnites with her bare hands. Within hours, he had fallen ill and died. With a single blow of a
hammer, the G'deon had knocked to pieces the walls of Watfield Garrison. The new general had clasped
hands with the new G'deon, and they had made peace with each other. Surely such things could not be
true!
But then there were broadsheets, carried from farm to farmтАФand Seth had examined an etched illustration
of the G'deon and the new general standing upon a pile of rubble, clasping hands: Clement, general of the
Sainnites in Shaftal, and, towering over her, Karis, G'deon of Shaftal. The etching was titled, peace between
our people. Isn't thatтАФ? said Seth's family. Surely not!
Later, a Paladin had come to Basdown, bearing a letter addressed to an elder who had died earlier that
winter. Soon the letter also made the rounds of the households, grimy and softened from being passed from
hand to hand, carried through wet weather, read again and again at one or another farmstead. There would
be a government in Shaftal once again. A person from Basdown must be named councilor and must travel
to Watfield, to speak for the people of the region.
The elders of Basdown asked Seth to go to Watfield and speak for them.
Air
Whatever he said, she knew it was truth, knew it in her bones, where it transformed to steel the human
stuff that broke too easily and never healed right: Meertown folded steel, which no one had seen but
everyone knew about, that never lost its edge and never rusted, not even in salt water. His truths gave her
bones that did not bend, that supported her changeable, fragile spirit in such a way that she was strong.
Such strength she had now!
All will be well, he said. Now she had come here, fearless in this fearsome place, this city where all that
was wrong was embraced, where people went about with their eyes glazed, some bewildered and some
enchanted and most waiting in doubt for their hopes to be fulfilled. She had traveled here with the others,
Senra, Charen, Tarera, Irin, and Jareth, her brave companions. Her son had left, for he had his own calling.
His absence freed her. She had nothing to do, and the empty hours begged her to fill them with her
pigments and brushes. So she painted them: her son and him, whose name must never be said or even
thought, both of them in one face. Not even the others recognized who it was! Yet to her heart the two of
them had always been the same.
She painted, in a cramped, dirty room, in this notorious city, where no one suspected her presence. How
delicious that ignorance was. The evil ones, the bringers of violence and destruction, here was their center,
their ruler, their locus of power. The soldiers, yesтАФbut not only the soldiers, mere animals after all, hardly
worth the time and effort required to exterminate them. Their leaders, for leaders they must haveтАФthey
cannot decide anything for themselves, not even where to dig their latrines, for land's sake. One might
almost pity them in their stupidity if they weren't such brutes.
If they hadn'tтАФif they hadn't...
Her thoughts stopped there, as they always did, ever since be put a bulwark in her spirit to protect her from
the memories. The past did not matter, be had said, and it was true. She looked to the future, to the one
who was coming, whose way must be cleared, whose pretender must be eliminated, whose beasts must be
butchered, so that the true people of Shaftal could see clearly! Their task had seemed impossible, until he