"Julian May - The Pliocene Exiles 04 - The Adversary" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

Resisting the temptation to kill his friend, Aiken asked
Mayvar to get Stein and Sukey out of Muriah, beyond range of
the Host's mental snooping. Mayvar agreed, then went to a
meeting of the clandestine Tanu Peace Faction. This group
hoped that Aiken would succeed in his bid for the kingship and
bring a new era of peace and civilization to the Many-Coloured
Land. Among the peacelovers was Minanonn the Heretic, once
Tanu Battlemaster, who had been forced into exile deep in the
Pyrenees.

Brede Shipspouse let Elizabeth leave the room without doors
when she saw that the human metapsychic was determined to
live a life free of responsibility. Elizabeth agreed to take Stein
and Sukey away with her in her three-place hot-air balloon. She
awaited arrival of the pair on a mountaintop above Muriah.
Creyn the redactor fetched them from prison--but he could not
help bringing Felice, too, whom he had found unconscious and
near death in an adjoining cell, in hope that Elizabeth would
give up her place in the balloon to the tortured young athlete.

Elizabeth was trapped by her own altruism, even though
convinced that the Shipspouse had planned this to forestall her
escape. Finally, Elizabeth sent Felice, Stein, and Sukey away in
the balloon, and she returned to the room without doors, where
she withdrew into a fiery mental cocoon that isolated her from
Brede and all other minds.

The time of the Grand Combat had come. Virtually the entire
population of Tanu and Firvulag--together with large numbers
of human slaves, assembled on the White Silver Plain below
Muriah for the ceremonies and the ritual war. Aiken was
appointed by Mayvar to be a leader in the Combat; he had
attracted many adherents among the Tanu and hybrid warriors.
In a preliminary contest, Mercy overcame Aluteyn Craftmaster
to become the new President of the Creator Guild.

Hundreds of kilometres west of the White Silver Plain, the
three escaping balloonists were enacting a drama that would
ultimately affect the fate of the unsuspecting combatants.

In his torture of Felice, Culluket the Interrogator had unwit-
tingly duplicated a drastic mind-altering technique that Elizabeth
had used on Brede to raise her to operancy; now Felice had
gone operant, too, and no longer needed a torc to exercise
her metapsychic powers. These powers--at least the destructive
aspects of psychokinesis and creativity--were greater than those
of any other person in the world. The girl's incipient psychosis
had similarly burgeoned under the torture; her thirst for revenge
against the Tanu was now inextricably merged with a darker