"Larry Niven - Limits" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

A shrug. "After the Torovan invasion, after we had to get out Mother
talked incessantly about palace life. I think she got lost in the past. I
don't blame her much, considering what the present was like. What she told me
and what I saw myself, it's all a little mixed up after so long. I saw the
traveling eye, though."

"How did that happen?"

"Mother was there when a messenger passed it to the king. She snatched
it out of his hand, playfully, you know, and admired it and showed it to me.
Maybe she thought he'd give it to her. He got very angry, and he was trying
not to show it, and that was even more frightening. We left the palace the
next day. Twelve days before the quake."

Karskon asked, "What about the other-?" But warning pressure from her
hand cut him off.

Thone had finished rolling up the sail. As the boat thumped against the
stone wall he sprang upward, onto what had been a balcony, and moored the bow
line fast. A girl in her teens came from within the tower to fasten the stern
line for him. She was big as Thone was big: not yet fat, but hefty, rounded of
feature. Thone's sister, Karskon thought, a year or two older.

Durily, seeing no easier way out of the boat, reached hands up to them.
They heaved as she jumped. Karskon passed their luggage up, leaving the cargo
for others to move, and joined them.

Thone made introduction. "Sir Karskon, Lady Durily, this is Estrayle, my
sister. Estrayle, they'll be our guests for a month. I'll have to tell Father.
We bring red meat in trade."

The girl said, "Oh, very good! Father will love that. How was the trip?"
 "Well enough. Sometimes the spells for wind just don't do anything. Then
there's no telling where you wind up." To Karskon and Durily he said, "We live
on this floor. These outside stairs take you right up past us. You'll be
staying on the floor above. The top floor is the restaurant."

Durily asked, "And the roof?"

"It's flat. Very convenient. We raise rabbits and poultry there." Thone
didn't see the look that passed across Durily's face. "Shall I show you to
your rooms? And then I'll have to speak to Father."


Nihilil's Castle dated from the last days of real magic. The South Tower
was a wide cylindrical structure twelve stories tall, with several rooms on
each floor. In this age nobody would have tried to build anything so
ambitious.

When Rordray petitioned for the right to occupy these ruins, he had