"Pierce, Tamora - The Circle Opens 01 - Magic Steps" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

smoothly that morning lay on the floor. His fine clothes were slashed and sodden
ra gs. His jewels lay in a bloody heap atop his desk, as if whoever killed him
had wanted to say they were too dis gusting to steal. Worst of all, the mans
head had been placed in a sling made of his turban and hung from an overhead
lamp.
A tiny woman in brown and blue stood by the dead mans feet, shaking her head.
For all her small size, she had the lightly seamed face of someone in her
fifties. "I can only guess they were waiting for him when he come in, cap'n,
your grace," she said absentmindedly, staring at bloody slippers. "His guard
spells never warned him."
"You can see from the furniture he never put up a fight," added another
investigator as he went over a bookcase. "Even when his guards let them in. That
don't make sense, 'less it was family done it."
"But the spells weren't released to let someone else in," Sandry blurted.
Everyone looked at her. Sandry folded her hands. "Can any of you see or feel
magic?" They all shook their heads. "Most spells like this, if you can see them,
they turn colors, depending on whether someone broke through, or tried to erase
them, or just released their effects for a while. Using a password just
releasesЧit halts the protections, it doesn't end the spell. And this"Чshe waved
a hand to take in the spells all around themЧ,"it hasn't been touched. I can
tell that just by looking at it. Even though Rokat wasn't a mage, he'll have
owned a key to these spells. He would have been able to look at that and know
their status. The keys are usually made like jewelry-,"
"Here." A sergeant whose almond-shaped eyes and gold skin showed his ancestors
were from the Far East went to the desk. He used a wooden rod drawn from a
quiverlike container hung on his belt to separate a piece of jewelry from the
sticky heap of gems and precious metal. It was a long oval pendant on a chain.
"Don't touch it, my lady," he cautioned. "Not till our mages have a go at it. We
knew he had spells on the place, of course, though we can't see them. His kind
always does."
She nodded and leaned closer. The pendant was inlaid with a number of minute
squares, each made of black, pale, or fire opal. A thin slice of clear crystal
was laid over them. A hair-fine thread of magic stretched away from each square.
"He would have paid a fortune for this," Sandry murmured. "Yes, it's his key.
Each square must be tied to a different set of spells, so he'd know exactly
where somebody tried to break in. But look at it." She glanced at the Guards and
their captain, all of whom stared at her without understanding. There was a
tiny, ironic smile on the duke's lips. He gave her a slight nod. "Like I said,
the spells were never touched. This whole pendant is dark," Sandry told them.
"Nothing's glowing, and it's made to be read by someone with no magic whatever.
No one broke through these spells."
"The killers' spells were better, that's all," said Captain Qais bluntly.
"Someone always has better magic. Or the guards, or one of the family, must have
given the right passwords to whoever they let in."
"But we had no trouble comin' in without passwords," the tiny woman pointed out.
"You had no trouble because Jamar Rokat is dead," Sandry replied. "The main
power of the spells would be keyed, to him."
The duke rubbed his chin. "Surely after he went to the expense to have these
spells laid on, he'd only give passwords to a few. He was a careful man with
many enemies. He'd keep the password to this room for his own use."