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

Again, I could see the faint heat-shadow-like images I had seen around the strange Brotherhood ships, but the ones in the clouds were natural. How I could tell the difference, I didn't know. But I did. After a while, my eyes began to ache. So I closed them and began to listen.
There were other dangergeld groups around. We met in the quarters and sometimes talked over dinner. They weren't much different, except they looked to be in better shape, and they all seemed distant. Friendly, understanding, but distant.
Two of them were seated on a bench on the other side of the hedge. Their voices carried.
". . . Brysta, that's what they say . . ."
"At least it's not Hamor . . ."
"Take Hamor over Candar . . . home of the chaos-masters . . . Emperor of Hamor likes some order . . ."
Cassius had mentioned that Candar was the most chaotic of the major continents. Tamra said that was because it was closest to Recluce, and there had to be balance. Cassius frowned, but hadn't corrected her. That meant she'd been right.
So what else was new. From Frven in Candar, the chaos-wizards had ruled most of the world-until they'd created a new sun in the sky and melted most of the capital's buildings and people like wax. Although that had been generations ago, the people probably hadn't changed that much.
"Could I join you?"
I almost jumped, opening my eyes with a start.
The musical voice belonged to Krystal.
"Sure . . . I'm not certain I'm much company."
"That makes two of us." She tucked her feet under her and settled down with a cubit of grass between us, shrugging her shoulders as if to loosen her faded blue tunic. The long hair was bound up with silvered cords. When she wasn't giggling or fiddling with her hair I enjoyed watching her. She was as graceful as Tamra, but without the arrogance, and behind the giggles I suspected there was more strength than either of us knew.
Thimmmmm . . . The chime from the temple echoed once, calling those of the Brotherhood who wished to join the evening meditation. I wasn't about to, and I'd noticed that Magister Cassius never did either.
Krystal did not move, but the two men on the bench on the far side of the hedge left.
"They're probably going to give thanks for being sent to Brysta, instead of Candar." The words popped out of my mouth.
"Where do you think we'll be sent?"
"Candar," I opined.
"You're usually right ... I mean, about facts . . ." She looked down at the grass.
I straightened into a sitting position and stopped leaning against the oak. Both tree and ground were hard. The clouds above the eastern horizon showed gray, and the breeze from the west picked up, ruffling my hair. A hint of trilia tickled my nose, bittersweet orange.
"What will happen to us?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. It seems like we're a strange lot, but I suppose all dangergelders are. Myrten's a thief, but how he lasted so long . . . Wrynn's really a soldier, probably belongs in the border guard. Sammel's a missionary in a land that already has a faith that doesn't place compassion above order. Tamra hates men, and half the world is male. Dorthae ... I just don't know . . ."
"And you?"
"Me?" I shrugged again. I didn't want to talk about me. "Like Cassius says, I'm easily bored. What about you?"
"I think you're bored because you want to know everything and you don't want to admit it."
Thimmmmm . . . The second chime from the temple rang, indicating the evening meditation had begun.
"What about you?" I asked again.
"Me?" Krystal giggled just slightly.
I frowned.
"You don't like it when I giggle."
"No." I looked over her shoulder and down the grassy stretch toward the small garden just before the wall. Dorthae and Myrten were seated on opposite ends of the bench, playing some sort of card game. That figured. Myrten would find something with odds in it anywhere.
"I was contracted, you know. He didn't mind the giggling too much."
"I'm sorry." I hadn't thought about that. I was young. What if Koldar or Corso had been picked for dangergeld? Krystal was announcing that the Brothers had pulled her away from her husband/lover, just like that. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It was a good excuse to leave. He'll be happier. I already am."
"Just leaving?" I couldn't imagine my mother walking away from my father.
"You look at my hair. You see my breasts. So do all the men. Your looks are honest, at least." Her voice was low, almost whispery, yet still musical.
"True," I admitted.
She readjusted her position on the grass. Somehow the readjustment got her almost next to me. "Do you think about what I feel?"
Actually, I was wondering how she would feel to hold and touch, but that wasn't what she meant. "Not at first."
"Oh, Lerris . . ." her voice died off.
We sat there as the darkness drifted down upon Nylan.
"Would you just hold me?" Her voice was like a child's.
I did, and that was all I did. Not that I didn't think about more, especially later that night, alone in my bed.


XI

AFTER WE WERE well into the lectures from Talryn, Magister Cassius, and Magistra Trehonna-the lady with the glare that even quieted me-one morning Talryn marched us down another long but well-lit tunnel and out into a wide room, sunken partly into the ground.
Underground or not, the overhead and upper side windows admitted more than enough light. Unlike the teaching rooms, the stone walls were plastered over with an almond-shaded white finish. The flooring was the strange part, neither wood nor stone, but a greenish and springy substance that gave slightly underfoot.
The same substance was used for flooring in the exercise rooms where Dilton tried to force us all into a better physical condition. I had tried, but hadn't been able to break even the slightest fragment from it, even though I could squeeze it enough to press a thumb's width of it up between my fingers, and the woodworking with Uncle Sardit had left them strong. -The muscles in my legs were what suffered under Dilton, especially from the running and stretching.