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

spring rain.
аа "Hardly. But what has this to do with the dark angels?" Gethen frowned.
аа "Perhaps nothing. I do think we should talk with any who leave, if any
do, and set out word that they are to be treated kindly and escorted to
Lornth."
аа "That will not set well with some," pointed out Gethen. "Send those
who wish to fight to Clynya."
аа "Including the Lady Ellindyja?"
аа "I wish I could send her to Westwind or feed her to Ildyrom's dogs."
аа "That would not be good for the dogs," said Gethen, "even if they do
belong to Ildyrom."
а
а
IX
а
NYLAN LAY ON his couch in the darkness, listening to the wind as it
rattled the shutters.
аа He'd scarcely seen Ayrlyn in the past two days, not since she'd sung
the night before last. Was she avoiding him? Why?
аа The shutters rattled again.
аа What did he want? To live alone, to stay alone at the top of the tower
he had built? To forge enough peerless blades to last generations-until
Ryba needed his talents for some other form of mass destruction?
аа What did he want from his life, this life that had changed so much in
the blink of a ship's powernet that had fluxed and crashed? Then, had he
known what he had wanted before, or just let the service dictate things?
Building the tower had been the first big thing he had wanted . . . and
it was done, and building another wouldn't be the same, even if it were
needed.
аа He shook his head.
аа The shutters rattled yet once more, and the smith turned on his couch
until his eyes rested on the closed window and shutters. He and Ayrlyn
had started to get close before winter closed in around them, but the
confinement of the tower hadn't helped. Or had that been an excuse?
аа He and Ayrlyn had agreed not to sleep together regularly because . . .
because why? Because he was treading on thin ice with Ryba? Because he
didn't want to just drift into another relationship? Because he
recognized that Ayrlyn needed a total commitment, and he didn't want to
be forced?
аа With a deep breath, he turned back over, away from the rattling of the
window and the low whistle of the wind.
аа Plick! A drop of water splattered on the planked floor, probably from
the slowly melting ice making its way through the slates of the tower
roof, in places where two winters had frozen and crumbled the mortar they
had used instead of the roofing tar they did not have.
аа Plick!
аа The smith took another long breath, then-paused at what sounded like a
whisper outside his door-or bare feet on the cold stones of the tower
steps. But Ryba's door had not opened. He would have heard if it had, and
he had had nothing to do with Ryba since before the great battle of the