"Melanie Rawn - Exiles 1 - The Ruins of Ambrai" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

Collan started for the hall. Each step brought him approximately a quarter of an inch nearer
the doorway. He kept at it, stubbornly staring at the opening that seemed to mock him. It
didn't retreat into the distance or anything so obvious. He just couldn't get to it.

"Spells," said the Mage, sipping wine, "can be reversed."

Glowering, Col returned to his stool.

"If you're quite finished, Guardian Desse," sniffed Lady Lilen, "let me tell you what I've
worked out."

At dawn, after a restless night in a real bed with feather pillows and soft scented sheetsтАФthe
first ever in his lifeтАФ Collan was put on a horse. This animal was attached to a cart, one of
many going to Renig with four of the Ostin daughters. They were to stay with an aunt during
the Shir capital's autumn social season, a journey planned for months. The bored inspector
who scrawled his signature on travel documents yawned as he waved them on their way.

The addition of one copper-haired boy to the entourage was not remarked upon. By
Half-Seventh the alarm regarding an escaped slave reached Combel from Scraller's Fief, but
no one connected the extra child with the runaway. Lady Lilen, already under scrutiny,
certainly would never be so foolish as to assist the escapee and bring Scraller's wrath down on
her head.

As it happened, Collan himself removed all danger from the Ostin Blood. He was not with the
young ladies when they arrived at Renig. The second night of the trip, he stole a horseтАФa
feisty little mare, not the druge gelding that pulled the cartтАФand galloped away.

Desse was furious when he heard of it. But by that time his attention was engaged by other
matters and he was too busy hiding himself to worry about finding someone else. And if the
boy was too stupid to know when people were trying to help himтАФwell, so much for him.

For the time being.
 Chapter 4


Collan was on his own from Applefall to Snow Sparrow: six long, scary weeks. He worked for
food and lodging when he could, stole when he had to, and nearly got caught a hundred
times. Taguare had called him not yet thirteen; truly told, early the next year he would be
fourteen, and in the manner of boys that age grew over an inch in those six weeks alone.
Scanty, irregular meals melted what flesh he had right off him and by the first of Candleweek
Col could have believably claimed close kinship with any scarecrow in the fields around
Cantrashir, except that the scarecrows looked better fed.

How he made it as far as Cantrashir was a tale he decided to save for his
grandchildrenтАФafter some judicious editing. He did compose a ballad about the journey
through the Dead White Forest and the Wraithenwood, but the song was only in his head. As
identifiable by his musical skills as he was by the mark inked into his shoulder, he hid all his
schooling. A pity, too, for there was plenty of money to be made as a roving singer, or
assisting semi-literate merchants with their account books, or reading to wealthy ladies. But
he would have had to explain how such learning had ever come to an orphaned peasant boy,