"Recluce - 07 - The Chaos Balance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

from Ayrlyn warned him not to push Ryba.
аа "Did you find out any more in those scrolls about Cyador?" he asked
easily.
аа "There wasn't much," Ryba admitted. "I get the feeling that it's some
sort of Rationalist leftover, with a heavy dose of chauvinism." She
shrugged. "Right now I don't have much to go on, but it bothers me."
аа The name Cyador chilled Nylan, too, but he had even less reason to be
worried than Ryba. After all, he was just a smith and an engineer. Just a
hardworking technical stiff and onetime involuntary stud who really
didn't have a mission anymore, now that the tower and the attached
facilities were complete and the armies of Lornth and Gallos annihilated.
He took another helping of noodles and then blotted his forehead.
аа "You're a glutton for punishment, ser," said Huldran.
аа "That's definitely one way of putting it," the smith agreed as he
broke off another chunk of the flat bread. "A true glutton for
punishment."
аа He ignored the bluelike flash from Ayrlyn's eyes, even as the
tightness in his guts told him he shouldn't. But he felt as though
everyone else were directing him, guiding him, from Istril and Siret
arranging which child he saw to Ryba's efforts to boost Westwind's
armory-almost endlessly, it seemed.
аа And the worst part was that he had no answers, no direction, except to
keep forging destruction.
аа He swallowed more tea. Maybe he'd feel better if he worked on that
foot for Daryn-something besides destruction.
а
а
VI
а
THE THREE-A blond woman, a gray - and - black - haired man, and a younger
black-haired man-sat around a small and ancient table in the tower room
that had belonged to the Lady Ellindyja before her exile to the Groves in
Carpa. All three bore a resemblance to each other.
аа The older man lifted the scroll. "I told you both about this . . ."
аа The blond woman with green eyes glanced toward the window and the dark
spring clouds framed by the dark wood, clouds looming over Lornth, and,
as lightning flashed, then to the door.
аа "He'll be all right, Zeldyan," said the younger man.
аа "I do not like to leave him, not after . . . everything," said Zeldyan.
аа "Get young Nesslek, then. He's certainly not old enough to repeat what
we say." The older man laughed.
аа "I would feel better." Zeldyan nodded and rose.
аа After she stepped through the door, the younger man turned. "Do you
think she dotes upon him too much? She trusts no one with him."
аа "In this time of uncertainty? Hardly, Fornal. Your sister knows that
her doting is limited. It is those women who refuse to understand
that-like Lady Ellindyja-who cause trouble. Darkness knows we have more
than enough trouble, anyway." The older man's index finger touched the
scroll. "We could use one of those white wizards that Sillek squandered
on the Roof of the World."