"Patricia A. McKillip - Riddlemaster 2 - Heir Of Sea And Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

"For what, in Hel's name? Are you planning to die or something?"
"Duac," Raederle breathed, but he waited stubbornly for the King to answer.
She felt, like a live thing beneath the irritation and obstinacy in them both,
the binding between them beyond all definition. Then Duac heaved himself to
his feet at Mathom's silence and snapped before he slammed the door behind him
so hard the stones seemed to rattle, "By Madir's bones, I wish I could see
into that peatbog you call a mind!"
Raederle sighed. She looked at Mathom, who seemed in spite of the rich robe he
wore, black and impervious as a wizard's curse in the sunlight. "I'm beginning
to hate spring. I won't ask you to explain the world to me, just why I can't
go visit Mara Croeg while Cyn Croeg is here at the council."
"Who was Thanet Ross and why did he play a harp without strings?"
She stood a moment, dredging the answer out of interminable, half-forgotten
hours of riddlery. Then she turned; she heard his voice again, just before the
door slammed once more, "And stay out of Hel."
She found Duac in the library, staring out the window. She joined him, leaning
against the window, looking down at the city that sloped gently away from the
King's house to spill around the rim of the harbor. Trade-ships were drifting
in with the midmorning tide, their colored sails deflating in the wind like
weary sighs. She saw the white and green of Danan Isig's ships bringing the
marvellous crafts from Isig Mountain; and a hope stirred in her that the
northern Kingdom had sent news more valuable than all its beautiful cargo.
Duac stirred beside her, as the peace of the ancient library with its smell of
hide, wax and the iron of old shields returned the composure to his face. He
said softly, "He is the most pig-headed, arbitrary and exasperating man in the
Three Portions of An."
"I know."
"Something's going on in his head; something's bubbling behind his eyes like a
bad spell... It worries me. Because if it came to a choice between a blind
step into a bottomless pit with him and a walk across the apple orchards with
the Lords of An at their finest, I would shut my eyes and step. But what is he
thinking?"
"I don't know." She dropped her chin in her palms. "I don't know why he wants
us all home now. I don't understand him. I asked him why I couldn't leave, and
he asked me why Thanet Ross played a harp with no strings."
"Who?" Duac looked at her. "How could... Why did he play a harp with no
strings?"
"For the same reason he walked backward and shaved his head instead of his
beard. For no reason except that there was no reason. He was a sad man and
died backward."
"Oh."
"He was walking backward for no reason and fell in a river. Nobody ever saw
him again, but they assumed he died since there was no reason--"
"All right." Duac protested mildly. "You could spin that one into yarn."
She smiled. "See what education you missed, not being destined to marry a
riddle-master." Then her smile faded; she bowed her head, traced a crack in
the old mortar. "I feel as though I'm waiting for a legend to come down from
the north, breaking out of winter with the spring water... Then I remember the
farmer's son who used to put shells to my ears so I could hear the sea, and,
Duac, that's when I become afraid for him. He has been gone so long; there has