"Pierce, Tamora - Circle Of Magic 04 - Briar's Book" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

Alleypup whistled softly. Thieves were important people-they had money once they'd managed to feed themselves. "How old were you?"
"Four." Briar stepped around what looked like a long-dead dog. "The Thief-Lord took me in after a while and gave me my name."
"The streets from four-that's harsh," Alleypup said, and coughed. Leaning away from Briar, he spat into the deeper running water of the city sewers. "My mum and dad only loped off two winters back. Said I was too hard to raise."
Briar slipped and had to brace himself against the walls around him to get his balance. Think I'll boil my hands afore I eat again, he thought. To Alleypup he said, "I never knew any but my ma, that died. Now I guess my mates at Winding Circle, the girls, they're like sisters. They're complicated, though."
"Mages is always complicated," Alleypup commented. They had come to an intersection. He looked both ways, then led Briar right, into a larger tunnel. "We been hearing stories about you and them three girls since the quake."
They splashed on in silence for a while. The pipes got big enough that they could walk if they didn't mind hunching over and getting their heads knocked from time to time. These pipes were glazed clay, better in quality than the smaller ones, though Briar still noticed quake damage. Some of it had been repaired, the newer clay lighter in color than the old stuff.
Once they'd stopped for another rest-Briar noticed that Alleypup wheezed a great deal-the other boy remarked, "Flick says you was a jailbird."
"Have a look." Briar held both hands close to the lamp to let Alleypup see the dark blue X's tattooed between his forefingers and thumbs. "They grabbed me up a third time, and I was on my way to the docks," he said with pride. "But Niko-a teacher of mine-he saw my magic and bought me off the magistrate."
"Never!" whispered Alleypup, startled.
Briar nodded. "Truth. He brung me to Winding Circle. I ended up in a house with three girls because he saw the magic in all of us."
"Nobody saw you was magic before?" Alleypup inquired. "All the time you hear about this kid and that one gets fingered by a magic-sniffer and bundled off for lessoning." Kid was street slang for a child. "And they're usually real little kids."
"Mine was strange," Briar replied with a shrug. "So was my mates' magics. We didn't even know we had it, till Niko and Lark and Rosethorn and Frostpine started teaching us. Lark and Rosethorn boss the house we live in. Frostpine's-"
"Metal-mage," said Alleypup. "Everyone knows him and Lark and Rosethorn." He straightened and led the way again.
At last they entered the great tunnels under the oldest parts of the city. More care and attention went into these underground rivers and streets, in part because the network was centuries old, but also because the guilds, the wealthy merchants, and those nobles who kept houses in town lived overhead. Here Briar was glad to see walkways on both sides of the stone-or brick-lined canals. There were rats, of course; the stink made his head spin; and often they had to race by pipes about to dump sewage into the water, but at least they weren't rubbing narrow walls covered with goo. These tunnels were built to last; what little earthquake damage they had suffered had been repaired with new brick and stone.
Not far from the point where they had entered the biggest tunnels, Alleypup turned into a lesser one. Ten yards down its length the street rats had yanked out bricks and dug into the earth, shaping a cave deep and broad enough to sleep a small gang. A lamp burned in a niche, casting a wavering glow over a pile of rags at the rear of the cave.
"It's me." Alleypup set his lamp on a ledge by the entrance. "I brung him."
The girl who lay on the pile of rags sat up, peering at them. "Briar?"
He walked over and knelt beside his friend. Except for a ragged belly-wrap of some pale cloth, Flick was naked. Her skin, normally deep brown, was covered with even darker spots and blotches from hairline to toes. Some on her left shin had merged into welts; they looked stretched and painful. Her lips cracked and bled; her eyes were glassy with fever. Heat rose from her to press Briar's face.
Flick struggled to smile. "Ain't I a sight?" She stretched out her hand, palm-up; Briar stroked it with his free hand. They locked their fingers together, twisted them, and tugged free in a traditional street-rat's greeting.
"You're something, all right," Briar admitted.
"I ain't never seen nothing like this-like these spots. Did you?" she asked.
Briar shook his head. "Open your mouth?"
She obeyed. Briar peered in, but the light was too chancy. "Alleypup, hold the lamp close."
The boy obeyed. Now Briar saw that Flick's tongue was covered with a dense, pale coat. He could even see blue spots on the inside of her cheeks.
"Close up," he told her. "Lemme see your back." Obediently Flick turned onto her side. The spots were as thick on the back of her body as on the front. Asking permission and getting it, Briar lifted the band on her belly-wrap. The spots continued on the girl's hips and bottom. "You can lay flat again," he said when he was done. As Flick turned, he backed up until he was on level ground. There he sat on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees, to think.
For an apprentice maker of medicines, as Briar was now, his old life in Deadman's District had been useful. There he'd seen all manner of sickness and injury. Now he ran through those he had witnessed close up. Smallpox and all the other poxes were old enemies, as was the black death. They looked nothing like what riddled Flick's skin.
He looked at his friend. "How long've you been sick?"
She counted fingers, her lips moving. "Two days with spots. I wasn't feeling right three days before."
"Anybody else got it?" Briar asked.
Flick looked at Alleypup, who shook his head. "None as we know," Flick said. She didn't have to add, "Not yet." All of them knew that most speckled diseases were catching.
Briar stood. "I don't know what this is," he told them. "I got to get Rosethorn down here." When their eyes went wide, he shook his head. "She hasta see for herself." He looked at Flick. "There's a closer route in, ain't there? If she came through the city, she could climb straight down to here?"
"You got to go to Urda's House anyway to tell her," Alleypup pointed out. "And they won't let me bring her through town. We'll get stopped at the gate." He pointed to his clothes, streaked with fresh muck.
"I'm going no place," Briar replied. "I got a quicker way to talk to Rosethorn than hiking back to the Mire."
"She won't come for no street rat," said Flick tiredly. "Nobody cares if we live or die."
"Shows what you know," Briar retorted. "Where do I ask her to come?"
Flick shook her head.
"Didn't I nick cough syrup for you back in Wolf Moon, that fixed you up?" demanded Briar. "Didn't I teach you how to throw a knife last time? I swear Rosethorn's all right. I swear."
Alleypup stripped off his filthy shirt and breeches, tossing them into a corner. The clothes he yanked from an open crate were somewhat cleaner. "Tell her meet me at the Guildhall clock." He pulled a worn tunic over his head.
Climbing the rags behind Flick, Briar pressed his hands to the raw earth at the rear of the cave. Even in the lamplight he could see roots hanging down. There were plants everywhere in the city. Digging his fingers into the rich dirt, he brushed a handful of rootlets, the beginnings of a vast underground web.
He and Rosethorn had thought of this over the winter. They could not speak mind-to-mind without touching, but they could talk through a web of plants. Closing his eyes, he found his magic, cool and firm with life. He passed it through his fingers, into the pale underground roots that had reached from the dirt to wrap around his hands.
His power split into a thousand small threads that flowed through grass and rose, ivy and moss, yew and cedar and ash roots. From one plant to another he sped, going in all directions except back. At the city wall he pulled himself together into a few dozen streams, plunging under the stone barrier to emerge in the tangle of weeds and poor men's trees of the Mire. He scrambled forward, Rosethorn now a blaze ahead of him, towering in his magical sight like a giant tree.
Ivy grew on the sides of Urda's House, framing the windows of the room where she worked. By the time he got there, she was opening the shutters.
This had better be good, she told him mind-to-mind as she gently wrapped her fingers in his vine-self. I'm in no mood for jokes.
He told her everything. When he was done, she untangled herself from the vine. He waited for her to reply, then realized she was gone, walking to the lower levels of the house. Just like her, not even to say she's leaving, Briar thought. Letting go of the ivy, he raced back through roots again, falling into his own body. Only when he'd carefully freed himself of the roots in the wall did he try to speak to Flick and Alleypup. "Rosethorn. She's on her way."
"I'm off," said the other boy. He picked up one of the lamps and left.
Coming out from behind Flick, Briar noticed the water bucket and ladle. "Have you washed at all?" he asked.
She looked at him, feverish eyes scornful. "You think they let me in the city baths?" she wanted to know. "Dippin' my toesies with the draymen and the drunks? Did you think-"
Briar held up a hand, and Flick caught her breath. "Sorry," she mumbled. "I washed the first day of spots, before I got too tired. I'm weaker'n a kitten now."
Briar nodded. "Do you boil your water?"
"Why?" she demanded. "We get water from the Potter's Lane fountain. It's good enough."