"Modesitt, L E - Corean Chronicles 3 - Scepters v1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

"And for His creation of the Duarchy!" repeated the congregation.
"Praise to the One Who Is! For He will come again in glory!" "For
He will come again in glory!" "Praise to Him and His True Duarchy!
For all that was and will be!"

"For all that was and will be!"

The single ray of light vanished, plunging the cavern temple into
total darkness for a long moment. Then, slowly, more indirect light
filtered into the temple as the skylight portals, with their gauze-
covered panes, were uncovered.

The sanctuary at the front of the temple was empty.

The gray-clad traveler made his way forward, toward the side
entrance leading to the chambers of the celebrant. His fingers
touched briefly the outer garments over the heavy leather wallet
hidden beneath his cloak and filled with golds.
Chapter 2

The wind moaned over the top of Westridge, hissing through the
quarasote that had grown up following the Cataclysm and that had
come to dominate the arid lands of the Iron Valleys in the tens of
centuries that followed. Alucius half stood in the stirrups, stretching
his legs. He settled back into the saddle of the gray gelding, drank
in the cool and dry morning air, and smiled to himself. He looked to
the northeast out across the ridge before him, and the expanse of
land empty except for quarasote and sand and red soilЧand the
predators and prey that were unseen, except to those who knew
how to understand the Iron Valleys or to those with Talent, who
could sense the lifethreads that wove the world into a unified
whole.

A good summer morning, he thought, bending forward and
thumping the gelding on the shoulder. "We've got a ways to go."

The lead ram was already five hundred yardsЧa quarter
vingtЧahead of the last ewe, and they were barely four vingts out
from the stead buildings.

The faint flash of green gossamer radiance washed over Alucius,
and he half turned in the saddle. A single soarer hovered in the
silver-green sky of morning, her wings shimmering against the sky
and the sheer stone ramparts of the Aerial Plateau to the east. The
herder's eyes took in the feminine form of the soarer, then darted
back to check his flock almost immediately.

He had not seen a soarer in almost two yearsЧsince he had left
the hidden city. Nor had he and his Talent sensed the green
radiance of one in all that time. And all the times he had seen one