"L. E. Modesitt - Corean Chronicles 1 - Legacies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

a good boy, Alucius." Then she resettled herself and offered the other breast.
As she began to rock once more, a point of light appeared off the north end
of the porch, expanding into a winged feminine figure with iridescent green-
tinged silver wings. The nursing mother blinked, then turned her head slowly.
For several moments, she looked at the soarer, a graceful feminine figure
somewhere in size between an eight-year-old girl and a small young woman--
except for the spread wings of coruscating and shimmering light, which fanned
yards out from the soarer's body until it bathed both mother and infant.
The woman chanted softly,
'Soarer fair, soarer bright, only soarer in the night wish I may, wish I might
have this wish I wish tonight..."
For a long moment after she had completed her wish, the woman watched.
The soarer's wings sparkled, their movement seemingly effortless, as she hung in
midair, in turn watching mother and child, less than twenty yards from the pair
on the porch. As suddenly as she had appeared, the soarer was gone, as was the
green radiance that had emanated from her.
Slowly, the woman murmured the old child's rhyme to herself.
'Londi's child is fair of face. Duadi's child knows his place. Tridi's child is wise
in years, but Quattri's must conquer fears. Quinti's daughter will prove strong,
while Sexdi's knows right from wrong. Septi's child is free and giving, but Octdi's
will work hard in living. Novdi's child must watch for woe, while Decdi's child has
far to go.
But the soarer's child praise the most, for he will rout the sanders' host, and
raise the lost banners high under the green and silver sky."
She looked beyond the north end of the porch once more, but there was no
sign that the soarer had ever been there.
Within moments, the door to the house opened, and a lean man stepped
outside, moving near-silently toward the woman in the rocking chair. "I thought I
saw a light-torch out here. Did someone ride up?"
'No..." She shifted the infant and added, "There was a soarer here, Ellus."
'A soarer?"
 'She was out there, just beyond where you put the snow fence last winter.
She hovered there and looked at us, and then she left."
'Are you sure, Lucenda?" Ellus's voice was gentle, but not quite believing.
'I'm quite sure. I don't imagine what's not there."
Ellus laughed, warmly. "I've learned that." After a moment, he added,
"They're supposed to be good luck for an infant."
'I know. I made a wish."
'What did you wish for?"
'I can't say. It won't come true, and I want it to come true for Alucius."
'That's just a superstition."
Lucenda smiled. "Probably it is, but let me have it."
He bent over and kissed her forehead. "For him, as well as for you."
Then he pulled over the bench and sat down beside her as the evening
darkened into night.

In the warm sun of a clear harvest morning, five people stood beside
the stable door, two men, two women, and a small boy. The child had short-
cropped hair that was a dark gray, rather than true black, and he clutched the
hand of the younger woman and looked up at the man who wore the black-and-