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

A low voice whispers in the muscular boy's ear, "Don't do it again, Dett. Ever."
"Says who?" The bully gets his knees under him and one hand on the clay and starts to elbow his way clear, unsure of who has spoken to him.
Snap... snap!
The other students fall away from the larger figure, who bellows, then staggers upright holding an injured hand, coddling two fingers that have already begun to swell. "Barbarians! Sheep-loving swill-drinkers!" Dett turns toward the students who had piled on. "Cowards! You just wait... You'll see."
"Dett... hurt his hand."
"...couldn't happen to a better fellow..."
"...bullied enough... deserved it..."
"...careful... get you..."
Even before he rises, neither the first nor the last, Lorn slips the polished pair of wooden rods back inside his belt. After he stands, he limps slightly as he walks toward the mallet he abandoned, bending gracefully and scooping it up left-handed.
Tyrsal, the last to scramble up, quickly extinguishes a grin and avoids looking at the injured Dett.
"That's it! Over here!" orders the schoolyard proctor, a tallish man with a pointed goatee and wavy black hair that stands away from his head. "All of you. You know the rules! Bruggages are forbidden!"
The score of students slouch toward the proctor and the columns of the low white stone building behind him. None move to brush away the smears of reddish clay upon their student garments, nor lift their eyes to the shimmering white of the Palace that stands farther to the south and which dominates the gradual slope rising from the harbor, nor even to the white structures that lie uphill of the school, the dwellings of the senior Magi'i and Mirror Lancer commanders.
"Line up! All of you."
Lorn somehow materializes in the second rank, nearly in the middle, the expression on his face one of mild concern.
"What happened? How did Dettaur'alt's hand get injured?" demands the proctor. His eyes travel the youths, picking out a stocky student. "Allyrn'alt? You always know."
"Ser... Dett fell on Tyrsal, and everyone tripped in the bruggage. When we got untangled, Dett was holding his hand. I guess he fell on it." Allyrn'alt's face is carefully blank.
"Tyrsal'elth?"
"I made the goal, and I jumped around. I must have bumped into Dett, ser. We all got tangled in the bruggage. Maybe Dett's hand got kicked by someone's boot." The small redhead looks apologetically at the proctor.
"Ciesrt'elth?"
"No, ser. I wasn't even in the bruggage, ser."
"...never is..." murmurs someone.
"Quiet!" The proctor turns to another. "Shalk'mer?"
"Ser... I got tangled up, but I didn't see anything." The square-faced merchant's son looks directly at the proctor.
"Lorn'elth? You wouldn't know... of course, you wouldn't." The proctor shakes his head. "You never see anything."
"I'm sorry, ser." Lorn looks contritely at the proctor.
"All of you, except Dettaur'alt, get back to your studies." The proctor sighs and motions for the muscular injured student to follow him toward the healer's room.
Before he turns to follow the proctor, Dett's eyes rake over the other students, but each in turn meets his eyes openly, without flinching.


III

Cyador is a paradox, one wrapped in an enigma, and offered as a riddle to the world it dominates by its sheer force of being. No land, no ruler, can contest the might of Cyador, yet its people look no different from other folk, except by their raiment and their deportment.
The Towers of Chaos descended from the Rational Stars, yet they serve those upon the land and water, those who can but observe the distant chaos of those stars, yet who can bring such chaos upon their foes.
For does the White Empire not have the fireships of war that can destroy all other vessels? Yet the trade vessels that dock at Cyad and Fyrad and Summerdock are carried there by sails, and not by the power of chaos. Do not the firewagons roll endlessly across the finest of granite roads that link all of the Empire together, carrying passengers and cargoes smoothly and speedily? Yet even within mighty Cyad, are not the white streets of the great city filled, not with firewagons, but carts and carriages pulled by horses, by men on horseback and women on foot?
Does not the Emperor, Protector of the Steps to Paradise, Ruler of the Towers of Chaos, command the firelances before which quail the barbarians of the north and east? Yet those firelances are borne by lancers who ride the same horses as do the barbarians, and those lancers also bear blades, even if such blades are of white cupridium, against which the poor iron of Candar cannot stand.
Do not the towers of chaos send forth light so bright that it must be shielded by solid stone? Yet the Palace of Eternal Light is lit by the diffuse chaos of the sun and the lesser chaos of oil lamps.
Is not the Emperor himself a figure of might and majesty? Yet all in power fear that an emperor may again arise who is truly mighty, like the one who is seldom mentioned by the high in Cyad.
Maintaining this paradox, this enigma that is Cyad, that is the task of the Magi'i, and the duty of every magus who has ever lived and ever will live, now and forevermore....
Paradox of Empire
Bern'elth, Magus First
Cyad, 157 A.F.


IV

In the blessing and warmth of chaos, in the prosperity which it engenders, and for the preservation of all the best of our heritage, whether of elthage, altage, or merage, let us give thanks for what we receive." The silver-haired man at the north end of the table lifts his head and smiles.
The family is seated around the dining table on the covered upper balcony, from where they can look downhill and south directly at the harbor-and to the west and slightly uphill at the Palace of Eternal Light. Although the sun has set, the sky remains the purple that precedes night, and the white stone piers of the harbor glitter above the darkness of the Great Western Ocean. The Palace gleams a shimmering white-both from the white sunstone from which it was constructed all too many years before and from the innumerable lamps which bathe its endless corridors and vaulting halls in continuous light.
The dining table around which the family sits is lit but dimly by two lamps set in gleaming cupridium brackets, each affixed to a pillar, the two closest to each end of the table. None of those seated appear to be affected by the dimness. The mahogany-haired Nyryah, who sits at the end of the table opposite the silver-haired Kien'elth, lifts a silver tray that holds both dark bread and sun-nut bread and tenders it to the sandy-haired young man on her left. "Go ahead, Vernt."
"Ah... thank you."
"And don't take all the sun-nut bread," suggests Myryan from where she sits across from the still-lanky Vernt. "We like it, too."