"Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

okay, you damn crow."
She wanted to throw the mp3 player too, but it wasn't hers. Oilcan had loaned it to Riki. The month she'd
been at Aum Renau, Oilcan and Riki became friends. Or at least, Oilcan thought they were friends, just
the same as he thought they were both humans. Riki, though, was a lying oni spy, complete with bird-
feet and magically retractable crow wings. He'd wormed his way into their lives just to kidnap Tinker.
She doubted that Oilcan would want the player back now that he knew the truth; it would be a
permanent reminder that Oilcan's trust nearly cost Tinker her life. But it wasn't her right to decide for
him.
She jammed the player into the deepest pocket of her carpenter's jeans. "Let's go."
Rage smoldered inside her until they had worked their way down to the discontinuity. The mystery of
the Ghostlands deepened, drowning out her anger. The edge of the blue seemed uneven at first, but then,
as she crouched down to eye it closely, she realized that the effect "pooled" like water, and that the
ragged edge was due to the elevation of the land тАУ like the edge of a pond. Despite the August heat, ice
gathered in the shadows. This close, she could hear a weird white noise, not unlike the gurgle of a river.
She found a long stick and prodded at the blue-shaded earth; it slowly gave like thick mud. She moved
along the "shore" testing the shattered pieces of three worlds within reach of her stick. Earth fire
hydrant. Onihida building. Elfhome ironwood tree. While they looked solid, everything within the zone
of destruction was actually insubstantial, giving under the firm poke of her stick.
Pony stiffened with alarm when тАУ after examining the stick for damage done to it and finding it as sound
as before тАУ she reached her hand out over the line.
Oddly, there was a resistance in the air over the land тАУ as if Tinker was holding her hand out the window
of a moving car. The air grew cooler as she lowered her hand. It was so very creepy that she had to steel
herself to actually touch the dirt.
It was like plunging her bare hand into snow. Bitterly cold, the dirt gave under her fingertips. Within
seconds, the chill was painful. She jerked her hand back.
"Domi?" Pony moved closer to her.
"I'm fine." Tinker cupped her left hand around her right. As she stood, blowing warmth onto her cold-
reddened fingers, she gazed out onto the ghost lands. She could feel magic on her new domana senses,
but normally тАУ like strong electrical currentsтАФheat accompanied magic. Was the 'shift' responsible for
the cold? The presence of magic, however, would explain why the area was still unstable тАУ sustaining
whatever reaction the gate's destruction created. If her theory was right, once the ambient magic was
depleted, the effect would collapse and the area would revert back to solid land. The only question was
the rate of decay.


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 - Chapter 1

Pony picked up a stone and skipped it out across the disturbance. Faint ripples formed where the stone
struck. After kissing 'dirt' three times, the stone stopped about thirty feet in. For a minute it sat on the
surface and then, slowly but perceivably, it started to sink.
Pony made a small puzzled noise. "Why isn't everything sinking?"
"I think тАУ because they're all in the same space тАУ which isn't quite here but isn't really someplace else тАУ
or maybe they're everywhere at once. The trees are stable, because to them, the earth underneath them is
as stable as they are."
"Like ice on water?"
"Hmm." The analogy would serve, since she wasn't sure if she was right. They worked their way around
the edge, the hilly terrain making it difficult. At first they found sections of paved road or cut through
abandoned buildings, which made the going easier. Eventually, though, they'd worked their way out of
the transferred Pittsburgh area and into Elfhome proper.