"Joel Rosenberg - 04 - The Heir Apparent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

I am cleverer than you are, Karl Cullinane. I will take the extra step. Plant the rumors, and wait. That
was the key. The emperor would, someday, have to go for the sword. Perhaps he could be hurried along.

It would be tricky, but it could be done. Slowly, quietly, carefully.

It must be done. And it will be done.

One Year Before, In Wehnest:

Doria and Elmina

I'm worried about Karl, Doria thought.


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"Doria, Doria," Elmina chided as she shook her head, sending the cowl of her robes falling back to
her shoulders, revealing the stringy black hair that had been hidden beneath.

The fish-belly pallor of Elmina's skin would have been shocking under other circumstances, but
here it was to be expected. It was almost reassuring, because it spoke of healing. Healing, even
when the healing consisted only of stabilizing someone as badly wounded as their present patient,
drained magical, physical, and even mental reserves; Elmina had just pushed all of hers as far as
possible.

"Worry isn't for us, Doria. Only soothing. Only restoration. Only healing." Trembling with
weakness, Elmina laid a soothing hand on the arm of their patient, an unwashed peasant who had
been brought to the Hand temple in Wehnest, barely alive after being carried into town by the
same ox cart that had accidentally been pulled over him, its ironclad wheels shattering an arm,
crushing his ribcage, rupturing his spine.

Doria nodded. "Healing is for us," she agreed, then laid her hands on their patient.

The farmer wasn't in good shape, but he was alive, and the damage was repairable.

The first priority had been to prevent the screaming man's life from deserting him, and the second
to quell his pain. Elmina had done both. The result left the man unconscious but safe, the pooled
blood in his crushed chest refusing to either clot or flow from his body.

"Doria..."

"I know. Shhh, Elmina; be still now."

Doria licked her lips once, and reached back into her mind and soul for the spell. It wasn't as
though she was speaking deliberately; she simply let the words depart from her as she began to
chant the evanescent words of healing, letting the power flow gently with the airy syllables. And, as
always, she was never totally certain if the warm glow surrounding the peasant was in the air, or
her eyes, or her mind.