"L. E. Modesitt - Timedivers -Timegods - 03 - Timegods' World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

The man seemed familiar, too familiar. Why had I seen him? What did the energy levels
mean?

Before I could ponder the question, I stumbled from the blackness.

And was in trouble--serious trouble.
I did not wake in merely cold covers, or standing by my bed, as had happened once or
twice when I had dreamed about the crossroads. I found myself standing in a winter rain,
still wearing but a long night-shirt, and barefoot, at the foot of the stone walkway leading to
the front door.

Whhhssssstttt . . . click, click, click, . . .

The half-frozen rain pelted down in sheets, as it always did in the Ninis storms, each sheet
sweeping across the road and down the valley, followed by a break in the wind, cold ice
drizzle, and then another pounding sheet of ice droplets striking hard enough to raise tiny
welts on unprotected skin.

Most of my skin was either barely protected or totally uncovered.

Part of my mind was protesting. It was too early in the year for such a violent and chill
storm. The afternoon before I had been picking chysts from the trees along the stone
fence that separated our grounds from the Davniadses', and I had taken my tunic off.
That's how warm it had been.

The changed weather wasn't paying any attention to my mental protests, but continued to
raise welts on my skin and drench my nightshirt.

So I hurried gingerly toward the overhang of the front doorway, each bare foot planted as
carefully as possible on the slick stones.

Not carefully enough, I discovered, as my bare feet slipped from beneath me and my
posterior and flailing hands slapped down on the cold stones.

Scrabbling and edging along across stones that were slick as glass and cold as deep
winter, I finally managed to reach the overhang and dry stones underfoot. From there
getting inside was easy. I opened the heavy door and took three steps until I stood on the
polished slate of the entry hall in an instant pool of water, with a few icicles hanging from
the edge of my nightshirt.

Only after I was inside the house did I begin to shiver, either from relief or the
accumulated impact of cold.

In those days no one in Bremarlyn locked or bolted doors. Why would we? Westron was
prosperous; what little crime there might be was punished severely; and few of the lower
classes travelled.

The hall was chill, chill enough that normally I would have worn a robe, but that cold was
like a warm hearth compared to what I had left outside. What chilled me most was my