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

all the Shaman. But Gift had Madot as his main teacher because the Shaman had been
divided about his presence from the beginning. Some had been frightened of him. He was
the first Shamanic candidate of Black Blood ever, and many did not believe that he was
here to become a Shaman, but rather to learn how to dismantle them.
He understood the belief. It showed that the Shaman understood the kind of cunning
that had ruled his grandfatherтАЩs and great-grandfatherтАЩs lives. If Gift had been like
themтАФand he wasnтАЩt in any way that he knew ofтАФ he would have found some way to
infiltrate the Shaman, especially now.
A ruthless ruler would want to destroy the Shaman, and the Place they guarded. Ever
since the second Place of Power had been discovered, the Shaman had been worried. Fey
legend said this: There are three Places of Power. Link through them, and the Triangle
of Might will reform the world.
For centuries, the Fey had debated what the prophecy meant. Did тАЬreform the worldтАЭ
mean that everything would be destroyed? Or did it mean that the world would become
strictly a Fey place, a place where all diversity was destroyed? Most agreed, though, that
discovering the Triangle would benefit the Fey, as discovering the cave had benefited the
goat herder and his family by giving them powers undreamed of before. Controlling the
Triangle, most believed, would make the Fey gods.
Shaman believed that once the second Place of Power had been discovered, the third
would be easy to find. A Shaman would stand within the first Place of Power, another
Shaman would stand in the second, and together they would triangulate the power, and
learn where the third was located.
But discovery of the Triangle frightened everyone. Gift had set up, at his sisterтАЩs
request, guards for the second Place of Power. Those guards did not allow a Shaman into
it. The Black Family, at least Gift and AriannaтАЩs branch of it, did not want anyone to have
access to the Triangle. Gift and Arianna could have attempted to triangulate the power
and learn where the third Place of Power was. So far, they had chosen not to. Arianna
believed, and Gift agreed, that there was no need to unleash more magic upon the world.
The Shaman, on the other hand, had requested an opportunity to triangulate the
Places of Power, and Arianna had refused them. Then the Shaman had made it clear that
they guarded the first Place of Power and they did not want a member of the Black
Family to enter it. The Shaman feared such power in the hands of the Black Family, and
would have done whatever they could, short of fighting the family themselves, to prevent
the Black Family from controlling the Triangle.
The Shaman believed that warrior magic, as represented by the Black Family, would
use the Triangle for harm. They believed that only Domestic magic should control such
power, and they guarded this Place of Power to prove their point.
Yet they were taking him there nowтАФand the fact that he was one of the few who had
ever seen the second Place of Power made this event even stranger.
He wondered what the Protectors had said. They were the main guardians of this
Place of Power, and they had fought his entry into the village. They hadnтАЩt relaxed their
vigilance in five years.
Halfway up, he and Madot stopped. A platform with benches carved from stone
indicated that this was the designated resting point. Madot sat in the left bench and
indicated that Gift sit in the right.
He didnтАЩt want to. He wanted to keep climbing. But that was the impatience she was
trying to train out of him. He sat.
The bench was cold beneath him, but then it had no veins of red running through it. It
faced westward, providing a spectacular view.
 The Eccrasian Mountains extended as far as the eye could see. In Vion, distances were