"Modesitt, L E - Recluce 10 - Magi'i Of Cyador" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

"What's a bale of garment class run?"
"Bales are for raw cotton. Bolts are finished. I could sell it at ten a bolt to Guvell." She frowns. "Maybe fifteen if it's really good."
The two burly men, each topping Lorn by a head, appear just behind the trader.
"What say you, merchanter?"
"Offer him eight for the first two bolts," Lorn suggests, noting the short timber leaning against an empty rack. He does not let his eyes even register its presence as he bends toward Ryalth. "Tell him we'd love to buy his cotton, but that it's far more than we need."
"We'll take the first two bolts for eight golds total," Ryalth offers firmly.
"Eight golds for that which will bring twenty, or perchance thirty. Ah... my friends... Well... perhaps you don't wish to buy my cotton after all. Sooner or later, you will. You merchanters won't have the golds to keep buying shimmercloth from the Hamorians, not with the barbarians pushing at your borders." Aljak and the two guards ease forward. Each guard bears a heavy club, besides the blades in the scabbards. Aljak has a coil of velvet rope in his left hand, and the teeth that his smile reveals are crooked and yellow.
Lorn hides a frown, his attention on Ryalth-and the two thugs.
"And lady merchanter... perhaps you would like to spend some time with a real man, not a girlish enumerator." Aljak laughs harshly. "To seal a bargain, shall we say."
"When I tell you, dash toward the oil barrels... all right?" Lorn murmurs to Ryalth.
"You won't pay me twenty-five? How about twenty-five just to leave here?" Aljak laughs again, and the two guards step away from him, as if to flank Lorn and Ryalth.
"Now!" Lorn says.
As Ryalth bolts for the oil barrels, the student magus concentrates- hoping he can pull chaos from enough places-then flings the firebolt into Aljak.
Hsssttt!
"Aeeeeiiii Dung-devil..." Aljak's words are cut off.
The two guards freeze as they see the pillar of fire. Lorn uses the interval to cast two more firebolts. Hssst.' Hssst!
The other two figures writhe, screaming, momentarily, before they topple into charred heaps.
Lorn scans the rest of the warehouse, but the space is empty, as he expected. Aljak had not wanted witnesses. So far the student magus cannot sense the unseen presence of someone scanning the warehouse with a chaos glass. That is good, since he has used chaos in ways reserved but to upper-level mages. He wipes his damp forehead, ignoring the sudden headache. "Ryalth, I need some help."
Ryalth's eyes are wide as she steps away from the oil barrels. "What... what... did you do?"
"A small firelance, like the emperor's guards have," Lorn lies. "I'm not supposed to have one, and it would be best if you didn't mention it." He steps toward the small table behind the last stack of goods, nodding as he sees the small chest on the table. His fingers and his chaos senses deftly work a thin stick, and the lock clicks. He opens the chest and nods.
"Who... who would I tell?" asks Ryalth, looking over her shoulder toward the door as she hurries toward the young magus.
Lorn picks up a two-cubit length of greenish cloth from the samples on the table. Then, after pocketing perhaps fifty golds, he wraps the small strongbox in the cloth and hands it to Ryalth. "Here. It's yours."
"What?" Ryalth steps away, not taking the wrapped chest. "Aljak's family will be looking for anyone with more golds... they'll know it's stolen."
"Maybe not." He glances at the three charred figures. "Take it, please."
"What?" She reluctantly accepts the cloth-wrapped and heavy oblong.
"Come on." He tugs her toward the warehouse door, then gestures. "Stand right inside the door. Be ready to run. Tell me if anyone's watching."
Ryalth raises her fine reddish eyebrows.
"Please." Lorn follows her, but halts a dozen paces beyond the rack oil barrels, his eyes on the redhead in blue.
When she reaches the timbered door, she glances out, and then back at Lorn. "There's no one near. Some people at the cross-street up the way, though. They're coming this way."
"They're not near now?"
"No."
Backing toward the door where Ryalth waits, Lorn concentrates on summoning chaos right into the middle of one of the center barrels of oil, ignoring the headache that builds even more.
Whhhooossshhh! The wall of flame is so sudden and massive that he stumbles out the door, dragging Ryalth with him.
Turning toward the figures less than a hundred cubits north, who have already turned toward the warehouse, and gesturing toward the blaze, Lorn yells. "Fire! Fire in the warehouse!"
"Fire! Fire!" Ryalth's voice adds to the clamor.
The heads of three others at the corner turn.
From a narrow doorway across the road, a tall man runs toward them. "It's the clan warehouse! You! What caused it?"
"Oils, I think. We were talking about cotton, and all of a sudden there were flames everywhere." Lorn glances at Ryalth. "Excuse me, ser. I think she's a bit faint."
"Who are you?" demands the trader, studying the two young people in blue. "What clan?"
"I'm an enumerator." Another whoosh of flame flares from the warehouse, and the merchanter looks at the flames, then back at the two. Ryalth leans, almost dramatically, on Lorn's shoulder. The trader dashes past them toward the flaming section of the warehouse, gesturing toward the three men who have piled out the opposing warehouse as well. "We've got to get the water on the next building. Don't let another one go."
Lorn takes Ryalth's arm. "Let's get out of here. Don't drop that."
They hurry back along the road until they reach the Second Harbor Way and turn uphill.
Ryalth glances back toward the increasing pillar of smoke. "Did you have to do that? That could burn a whole block."
"It won't. The roof's slate, and there's nothing to burn but the oils. Maybe whatever was in the amphorae." Lorn pulls Ryalth to the side of the Way as a the fire brigade wagon careens past. "Aljak was ready to kill both of us. That's why no one else was there-except he would have spent longer with you." He offers a crooked smile as they walk swiftly uphill and then eastward along the Lower Hill Road away from the warehouses. "Not that I fault his taste."
"You're frightening sometimes, Lorn."
"Me? I'm just a student." He grins disarmingly.
"That's hard to believe at times." Without stopping, Ryalth looks down at the wrapped cloth. "This is heavy."
"You've got your five hundred golds, more or less."
"I can't take all that."
"You have to. I took what I dared. If I had more, my family would find out in days, if not sooner."