"Andre Norton & Lackey, Mercedes - Elvenbane 1 -The Elvenbane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

training, the rest are for duelists. Lord Edres wanted about a dozen for
assassins, but I told him we had nothing suitable."

"Rightly," Dyran replied with a frown. "I'm a better mage than he is, but that
doesn't rule out the chance of him allying with someone who's as good as I
am and breaking my geas. It would be a sad state of affairs to find assassins
with my brand on them making collops of my best human servants."

"Exactly so, my lord," the overseer replied. "Did you sense any resistance? I
didn't specify an exact number to Lord Edres, only a round figure. I weeded
out what I could, but I'm not the mage you are."

Dyran looked out over the sea of rapt young faces. "No," he said, finally.
"No, I don't think so. These should do very well. Excellent work, Keloc.
You're getting better results with these than with the horses."

The overseer smiled a little. "It's easier to breed humans, my lord. So long as
you keep an eye on them, damage during breeding is minimal, and they're
always in season. And you've always had good stock, my lord."

Dyran chuckled, with satisfied pride. "I like to think so. Carry on, Keloc."

The overseer clapped his helm back on and saluted. "Very well, my lord."

Alara was disappointed, though not by the clarity of the woman's memories.
It wasn't going to be possible to pose as either a bodyguard or a concubine,
she decided. That was really too bad; either position would have been ideal
for gathering more information than the Kin" had access to at the moment.
At least one thing was explained: It looked as if the elven lords encouraged
rivalry among their humans, while maintaining control over them with
spells--or at least, that was what happened with the humans they allowed
close to them. So they kept the humans at odds with each other, while
looking to their lord with complete loyalty.

He had spoken of a geas; Alara wondered what it was they really did, how it
was set Was it just to keep the humans from being disloyal to their lord? Or
was it more complicated than that? The father and mother kept saying that
"everything comes from the Lord." She wondered if that was part of it too?

But it couldn't be foolproof; Dyran had said something about "resistance."
Which had to mean the geas could be fought, or even broken, by the human
himself...

She wondered if one of the Kin could break it, too...

Well, even if they couldn't get into the ranks of the fighters, Alara could at
least see one of the duels through the woman's memory.

It could be very enlightening.