"Modesitt, L E - Recluse 10 - The Magic Of Recluse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

Wrynn looked at the polished black-oak floor planks, then at Krystal, and finally in the general direction of Myrten, who seemed to shrink further into the corner. Myrten always seemed to put himself in a corner when he could, a corner from where he could watch everything.
The room grew silent.
"You know what I mean. You just play with words." Wrynn's voice was harsh.
I agreed with her assessment of Cassius, of all the magisters and masters. All of them played with words, twisting their meanings, hiding more than they revealed.
"Come, now," Cassius's voice soothed. "You feel that strength is important. What kind of strength? Is a bully to be admired? Would you despise a small woman who required aid to stop a thief?"
"I don't admire bullies. I don't think much of people who invite theft or attacks. And I don't like thieves." Each word came forth filled with grit. Wrynn glared at Myrten, who for some reason looked away.
"So you feel order should rest solely upon strength and self-discipline?"
"I know what I feel." Wrynn glared this time at the magis-ter.
"Fair enough." Cassius actually chuckled before wiping the smile from his face and turning toward Krystal. "And you, laughing lady? Why do you fail to pay much attention to order? Or to anything?"
Krystal didn't even look up at Cassius. She giggled and played with her long black hair.
"Krystal . . ." The booming voice turned cold. Even I shivered.
Krystal looked at the floor planks. "It . . . doesn't help to pay attention. Things happen anyway. Thinking doesn't stop them." Her voice was barely above a whisper. Wrynn sniffed loudly.
"Then you agree with Wrynn? That violence is the only way in which evil can be stopped?"
"Sometimes." She shifted her weight and looked at me. "What do you think, Lerris?"
I wished she hadn't made that unspoken request, and especially that Cassius hadn't caught it. I coughed, trying to figure out what Krystal had really meant. ". . . ummm ... at least sometimes it seems like perfectly good people can't do anything against evil or against accidents . . . and sometimes"-I recalled the baker-"people seem to be punished or exiled from Recluce just because they don't meet some unseen or unspoken standard. I guess I see that as unfair, that because they can't understand or aren't strong enough, they get punished."
"Do you think life is basically fair? Or that the Brotherhood has the obligation to be fair to an individual, when that fairness could threaten the safety of all Recluce?"
"I haven't seen that happen, I haven't seen any threat of that nature, but I have seen people who were not bad people exiled or punished."
Cassius smiled sadly, glancing from Krystal, who refused to look up, to Wrynn, who glared at him, and back to me. In the corner, Myrten licked his lips.
"Is living in Recluce a right or a privilege?" Cassius's question hung in the air like a spell.
"You're saying it's a privilege, that we have to meet certain conditions," I snapped. "That's fine, except no one ever explains the reasons behind the conditions. Just mind the rules; maintain order and banish chaos; and don't ask questions that we don't want to answer."
"I take it that you don't find the explanations satisfactory."
"You're right. I don't, and I don't think most of the people in this room do, either."
"So . . . the emperor has no clothes." Cassius's voice was lower and softer.
No clothes? What emperor? What clothes?
"This . . . philosophy ... is all very inspiring. But how does this prepare us for dangergeld?" Tamra's voice was cutting, and she had stood up.
"Sit down, and I'll tell you. None of you are likely to believe me. But I'll tell you."
I shrugged. So did Wrynn. Tamra glared, but she sat back down.
Cassius waited until the murmurs died away.
"It's really quite simple. Against perfect order, it is almost impossible for chaos-magic to prevail. Recluce is based on maintaining that order. Some people are order-sources; some people are chaos-generators; and some people can be either.
"Most people selected for dangergeld are either uncontrolled order-sources, or could generate either order or chaos without knowing it. The first step in dangergeld is to recognize that all of you have the ability to either allow chaos a foothold in Recluce or to help keep it from Recluce. You have to choose which, and the Brotherhood is not about to let you make that decision unless you're being watched and checked or unless you're outside Recluce.
"Since Recluce is not a police state, the best option is to let you see the rest of the world, or some of it, while you learn and decide."
Police state? That was an odd way of putting it. Only Hamor had police. For a moment, the room was still.
"So . . . you just throw us out for Hamor or Candar to murder, and everything stays fine with the sheep who remain?" Wrynn's voice was tight.
"Hardly. The current Emperor of Hamor is the grandson of a dangergelder who preferred the Southern Reaches and who was quite successful in taking over the Province of Merowey. The head assassin for one major power came from Sigil, not all that far from here." Cassius shook his head. "Believe me, the rest of the world will reward many talents. You're in the greatest danger if you believe in order and reject the Brotherhood." His eyes flashed toward me. "That's because you become a walking order-source in the realms of chaos and a threat to the chaos-masters."
"You're saying that because we have talent we have to leave Recluce until we master that talent?" asked Sammel.
"Not until you master it. That could take years. Until you decide within yourself your own course of action."
I almost bit my tongue. It was even worse than I thought. If I didn't accept the Brotherhood's stiff-necked order and rules, then I'd be thrown to the wolves, and, somehow, I didn't exactly see myself as a chaos-master. Why couldn't an ethical person use both order and chaos? Life consists of both.
"What about . . ."
The questions went on, but I didn't pay much attention. Everyone was just asking the same things with different words. So I was an uncontrolled order-source? Or worse. And no one still was describing what that meant, except that it was dangerous to Recluce.
My stomach growled, but no one heard as they argued with Cassius.
Krystal and I sat there in a quiet island. She looked at the floor, and I looked at everything and saw nothing.


X

THE SUN HUNG like a golden platter over the black stone wall that separated the Brotherhood's enclave from the seaport- that wall that seemed so low from the Brotherhood side, and so imposing from the market square below.
Even though it was but a few days past midsummer, the grass remained crisp and green, the air clean, and the nights cool-the result of the Eastern Current, according to Sammel.
I hadn't thought much about it, not until Magistra Trehonna started in with her maps and lectures on geography, and how the placement of mountains and currents affected weather. Then she got into how geography determined where cities and towns were, and why places like Fenard, the capital of Gallos, sat on the edge of the hills leading to Westhorns because the higher elevation made the city more defensible and the two small rivers provided power for the mills. The only interesting bit was how the imposition of order and chaos at what she called critical nodes could change whole weather patterns.
That partly explained why some of the Brotherhood ships patrolled certain segments of the northern waters. But her lectures were like everything else-a piece of knowledge here, another one there, and a whole lot of boring repetition in the middle.
So I sat with my back against a small red oak and watched the puffy clouds in the eastern skies begin to darken from white into a pinkish-gray. Just because, I tried to see if I could discover the patterns behind the clouds, trying to look beyond their surfaces.