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

soaking nightshirt. I wasted little time in stripping it off and carrying it to the kitchen where I
wrung it out. Still naked, I took some rags and went back into the entry hall and wiped up
the puddle I had left.

According to the big clock at the foot of the formal stairs, dawn was still some time away.
During the whole episode, I heard nothing from the maid down below, or from my parents
above, but that may have been because any slight noise I made had been drowned out by
the wind and the sound of the ice rain on windows and walls.

Then I put the rags in the empty wash bucket, hoping that Shaera would either think she
had overlooked them or not want to mention the problem when she discovered them on
the morrow.

Taking my damp nightshirt with me, I tiptoed up the back stairs to my room. I opened the
window briefly, got pelted by the rain again, and closed it. After laying the wet nightshirt on
the stone sill, I rummaged through my closet and found my other nightshirt, which, as a
proper scholar in training, I was not to wear for another day. I yanked it on and climbed
under the cold quilts, and began to shiver in earnest.

How had I gotten outside? Had I been sleepwalking? Did the dream have anything to do
with it? What?

Surely I would have fallen on the ice going down the walk, and I swore that the chill of the
ice underfoot and the rain had been too sudden for an awakening from a nightmare. Had I
been sleepwalking, wouldn't I have wakened as soon as the cold and rain struck me, not
all the way down the walk?

The questions seemed endless, but, surprisingly, shivers or not, I fell asleep before I could
figure out answers that made sense.

When I woke the next morning, it was to a blaze of light. My first thought was that I had
been transported to the tower of my night dream vision.

I heard nothing for a moment, but I could smell the odour of burnt sausage, which meant
that Shaera was attempting breakfast. While she kept the large house spotless, she
attacked cooking as if, like cleaning, it were to receive the full force of her ability and
vigour. Full vigour meant high heat and overcooked meats and scorched breads.

The blaze of light came not from some dream tower, but from the sun flaring through and
reflecting off the ice that coated the trees, the ground, and even the stones of the
roadway.

I struggled from under my quilts, seeing that my breath did not quite turn to steam in the
air of my bedroom, and went to the window.

The nightshirt was semi-frozen, and I lifted my hands.

The hall light was on, and that told me that the solar power units on the roof had begun to
operate. They had been expensive, my father said, but he had always worried about
relying totally on the electric current delivered through the semi-ceramic cables from the