"Sheri S. Tepper - Dervish Daughter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

you might think appropriate. Recent research would
indicate a good many of the magical races are the
results of just such Wize-ardly accidents.'
'Mermaids? Dryads?'
'Among others, and not the most strange, either.
Have you ever called up a deep dweller?'
I had heard them laugh a few times during bridge


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CHAPTER ONE

magic but had never called them. Murzy had told me
to be careful, very careful, with them. I shook my head
again.
'I have. Pesky, mischievous creatures, but more than
half-manlike, for all that. If it weren't for their fangy
mouths, you'd think them children. I shouldn't wonder
if that race came from some magical accident during
pregnancy. Not that deep dwellers are common.'
All of which was something to think about. I snapped
my mouth shut and thought about it.
I'd never really understood the reason for the oath -
three years of celibacy (virginity in my case) sworn
when I was just fifteen. I'd done it, of course, because
they wouldn't let me be in the seven otherwise, and if I
weren't in the seven, I couldn't go on studying the art.
At that time, the art was just about all I had to care
about except for the seven old dams themselves. Well,
six and me.
So, I took the oath, and got initiated, and learned
some fascinating things, all a good bit of time before
Peter came along. When he did come along, however,
the oath began to feel like a suit of tight armor. There
was it, all hard and smooth outside, and there was me,
all sweaty and passionate inside. And that's the way this
trip had gone, with me being hard and cold half the
time and hiding in the wagon the rest of the time,
afraid of what might happen if I came out. I didn't
wonder that Queynt could see it. No one could have
missed it.
Peter came galloping back, head down, looking
thoroughly tired and irritable. 'More trees down. A real
swath cut up ahead. We'll need to find a way around.
No possible way of getting through it.'
When we arrived at the tumble, it was obvious he
was right. Seven or eight really big trees, fallen into a
kind of jackstraw mess, their branches all tangled
together. Lesser trees were fallen in the forest, the
whole making a deadfall that we could have scrambled