"Cygnet - 02 - The Cygnet And The Firebird" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

the smithy, disturbed the sudden, bewitched silence.
Meguet stared at Nyx, wondering if, bored or day-
dreaming, she had thrown some spell over the coun-
cil- But Nyx was entranced by the table, it seemed;

she gazed at it, wide-eyed, motionless.

Someone had slowed time.

In the weird stillness, Meguet heard a footfall in
the grass behind her. She whirled, her heart hammer-
ing, and brought the broadsword up in both hands. A
man stood within the tower ring, staring up at the
solitary black tower. The flaring arc of silver from the
door as the broadsword cut through light startled him;

Meguet felt his attention riveted suddenly on her. In
the brilliant, late light, the stranger cast no shadow.

She drew a slow, noiseless breath, tightening her
hold on the blade, trapped in a world out of time by
his sorcery and by her peculiar heritage: the sleepless

6 Patricia A. McWp

compulsion to guard what lay hidden within the tow-
er's heart. The man's face, blurred by the dazzling
light or perhaps by shifting time, was difficult to see.
He seemed a profusion of colors: scarlet, gold, white,
dust, blue, silver, that sorted itself out as he moved,
crossing the yard with a strong, energetic stride.

Tall as she was, Meguet was forced to look up at
him. His hair and skin were the same color as the
dust on the hem of his red robe and his scuffed yellow
boots, as if the parched gold-brown earth of some vast
desert blown constantly through sun-drenched air had
seeped into him. A strange winged animal embroi-
dered in white wound itself in and out of the folds of
cloth at his chest. The robe was belted with a curious,
intricate weave of silver; silver glinted also at his
wrists beneath his sleeves. A pouch of dark blue
leather was slung over his shoulder; another, of dusti/
yellow silk, hung beside that. He stopped in front of
Meguet's blade- She saw his face clearly then, as sur-
prised by her as she was by him.

His eyes flicked over her shoulder at the motionless
hall, then back to her. His broad, spare face was
young yet under its weathering; his eyes, a light,