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

assumed they were meetings of the Dedicate Council that governed the temple
city, not a council of temple mages.
"Mages without law are dangerous," Lark said. "What if there were no duke to
rule in Emelan? If he just vanished, with no heir appointed?"
"Someone else would take his position," replied Sandry hesitantly. It hurt her
heart to think of it.
"After bloodshed," Lark pointed out. "After civil war. councils ensure that our
people have someone to answer to, as Emelan answers to his grace. Other parts of
the world have their own ways to hinder rogue mages."
"I don't know how to teach," complained Sandry.
"It hasn't been that long since you learned the basics," Lark said firmly.
"Start with those. Go through your uncle's library. Talk to merchants and
noblesЧsee if any of them have ever heard of dance-mages. And he'll need a dance
teacher. If he's from a lower-class family, he'll know jigs, country dances, and
wedding dances, but little else. Learning new dances will help to keep him out
of mis chief, and create a direction for his power." Bending down, she picked
her workbasket up from the floor. It was filled with clothesЧshe dumped them on
the table. "If you'll take the stitching out, I'll cut these into patches for a
quilt," she told Sandry. "One of the East District families wants the father to
have a quilt made of their old things when he takes ship in the spring."
"That's sweet," remarked Sandry, pulling a tattered shirt toward her. Turning it
inside out, she laid her fingers along one of the seams and called to the thread
that held it closed. The thread began to wriggle free, twining around her index
finger like a vine. Watching it slither out of the cloth, Sandry remembered the
most vexatious part of her conversations with Pasco.
"He seems to think his family won't let him learn magic," she pointed out to
Lark, drawing out the threads that tacked the cuffs to the shirt. "He says it
would be different if he had a talent for provost's magic, but his family won't
hear of dancing magicЧas if it's a toy that Pasco might pick up. I don't
understand it."
"You see this in a lot of guild families and in the no ble houses," Lark
replied, cutting a worn skirt into squares. "And from what I heard of the
Acalons when I lived in the Mire, they've served the provost for genera tions.
They're practical people. Still, they aren't fools. Once they realize Pasco is a
genuine mage, they'll know he must be taught." She put her scissors down and
gazed at Sandry. "Of course, they may take it better if they hear it from you."
The girl sighed. The last thread came out of the collar, leaving the shirt in
pieces on the table before her. She stacked them up and put them aside, drawing
a pair of breeches out of the pile. "I really think he should be the one to tell
them. He might as well get in the habit of owning up to his magic, after all."
Once she had turned the breeches inside out, she saw these were better made than
the shirt, with the ends of the thread all hidden inside the hems. She glared at
the cloth. All the sewing- threads jumped out of the material in a hundred
pieces, flying across the room.
Lark hid a smile behind her hand and remarked quietly, "That seems like a
dreadful waste of thread."
Sandry nodded wryly, and lifted her hands. It took several calls to get the
scattered pieces to return. Once she had them, she scooped them into a mound on
the table. She petted them gently for a moment until they ceased to tremble.
When the bits of thread were calm, she sent her power cautiously through each