"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Black Throne 01 - The Black Queen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

He glanced up the mountainside. The Place of Power was a morningтАЩs climb from the
ProtectorтАЩs Village. From here, he could see the silvery shimmer that marked the caveтАЩs
entrance. His stomach jumped slightly. He had no idea how different this Place of Power
would be from the one he discovered on Blue Isle. On Blue Isle, the Place of Power
contained items from the IsleтАЩs main religion, Rocaanism. But Rocaanism wasnтАЩt practiced
anywhere on this continent, known as Vion. Here, at the foundation of the Fey Empire,
the word тАЬreligionтАЭ wasnтАЩt used at all.
Finally, he saw the door to MadotтАЩs hut open. She stepped outside and sniffed the air,
as she always did, as if the faint fragrances on the breeze gave her information that Gift
could never get. To him, all the smells were familiar: the dusty sharpness of the
mountains themselves; the pungent odor of the ceta plants that grew perennially behind
the StudentтАЩs Hut; the stench of the manure that he and the other students had spread on
the communal garden just the night before. Nothing stood out, and nothing was
unexpected. Once he had asked her what she smelled, and she had smiled.
 The future, boy, she had said. Just the future.
It also took him a while to get used to being called тАЬboy.тАЭ He was thirty-three years
old, a full adult in most places. To many Shaman, though, a thirty-three-year-old was still
in his childhood. Most full Shaman didnтАЩt begin their solitary practices until they were
ninety or older.
The Shaman were the longest lived of the Fey, and it was a good thing, because so few
had the ability to become Shaman. Of those who did, even fewer chose the work. It was
arduous and its rewards were few. He still thought of the Shaman who helped raise
himтАФa woman he thought of as his fatherтАЩs Shaman, even though his father hadnтАЩt been
FeyтАФand of the sacrifices she had made so that her Vision, her dream for the future,
could come true. She had died for that dream. Apprentices did not become Shaman until
they were ready to make that supreme sacrifice. It was the one area that Gift was
confident he would pass. He had sacrificed so much over the years that sacrificing his life
seemed a very small thing indeed.
Madot was watching him. Her eyes were dark against her wizened skin. Her white hair
surrounded her face like a nimbus. The hair was the unifying feature of all the Shaman,
the hair and the desiccated look of the body, the skin. It was as if in training their Vision
to See and Foresee, they had lost something vital, something that nourished them from
within.
Gift had none of that look. He favored his Fey mother in most things, but it was
obvious that Gift was not fully Fey. His father had been the King of Blue Isle, and the
people there were short, blond-haired and blue-eyed, with skin so fair that it turned red
in the sun. GiftтАЩs Fey heritage showed in his height, his hair, and his faintly pointed ears,
but his Islander heritage diluted his skin to a golden brown, made his cheeks round
instead of angular, and gave his eyes a vivid blueness that usually startled any Fey
meeting him for the first time.
Madot found GiftтАЩs appearance cause for concern. He had been having Visions since he
was a child, and he had first used his Visionary powers when he was three. Thirty years of
such extreme magic should have taken a toll on his skin, his hair, his face, but it had not.
And that worried her. Once she had mumbled that perhaps he hadnтАЩt tapped his full
power yet, and once she had said that perhaps his magic was something Other, something
so different that the rules no longer applied.
тАЬYou are being impatient,тАЭ she said as she approached him, her dark robes flowing
around her. Her voice was high and warm. He would have called it youthful if he had
heard it without seeing her. Yet she was among the oldest of the Shaman in the village,
and one of the most powerful.