"Sheri S. Tepper - The True Game 2 - Necromancer Nine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

We stopped for a moment before turning onto the high road. Away to the south a Traders' train
made a plume of dust in the early sky, a line of wagons approaching the Bright Demesne.
"Traders." Chance snorted. "As though Himaggery didn't have enough problems."
It was true that Traders seemed to take up more time than their merchandise was worth, and true
that Himaggery seemed to spend a great deal of time talking with them. I wasn't thinking of that,
however, but of the choice of routes which confronted us. We could go up the eastern side of the Middle
River, through the forests east of the Gathered Waters and the lands of the Immutables. Chance and I
had come that way before, though not intentionally. This time I chose the western side of the River,
through farmlands and meadowlands wet with spring floods and over a hundred hump-backed, clattering
bridges. There was little traffic in any direction; woodwagons moving from forest to village, water oxen
shuffling from mire to meadow, a gooseherd keeping his hissing flock in order with a long; blossomy
wand. Along the ditches webwillows whispered a note of sharp gold against the dark woodlands, their
downy kit- tens ready to burst into bloom. Rain breathed across windrows of dried leaves, greening now
with upthrust grasses and the greeny-bronze of curled fern. There was no hurry in our going. I was sure
Himaggery had sent an Elator to let Mertyn know I was on the way.
That first day we saw only a few pawns plowing in the fields, making the diagonal ward-of-evil sign
when they saw me but willing enough to sell Chance fresh eggs and greens for all that. The second day
we caught up to a party of merchants and trailed just behind them into Vestertown where they and we
spent the night at the same inn. They no more than the pawns were joyed to see me, but they were
traveled men and made no larger matter of my presence among them. Had they known it, they had less
to fear from me than from Chance. I would take nothing from them but their courtesy, but Chance would
get them gambling if he could. They were poorer next day for their night's recreation, and Chance was
humming a victory song as we went along the lake in the morning light.
The Gathered Waters were calm and glittering, a smiling face which gave no indication of the storms
which often troubled it. Chance reminded me of our last traveling by water, fleeing before the wind and
from a ship full of pawners sent by Mandor of Bannerweli to capture me.
"I don't want to think about that," I told him. "And of that time."
"I thought you was rather fond of that girl," he said. "That Immutable girl."
"Tossa. Yes. I was fond of her, Chance, but she died. I was fond of Mandor, too, once, and he is
as good as dead, locked up in Bannerwell for all he is Prince of the place. It seems the people I am fond
of do not profit by it much."
"Ahh, that's nonsense, lad. You're fond of Silkhands, and she's Gaxnesmistress down in Xammer
now, far better off than when you met her. Windlow, too. You helped him away from the High King,
Prionde, and I'd say that's better off. It was the luck of the Game did Tossa, and I'm sorry for it. She was
a pretty thing."
"She was. But that was most of a year ago, Chance. I grieved over her, but that's done now. Time
to go on to something else."
"Well, you speak the truth there. It's always time for something new."
So we rode along, engaged at times in such desultory conversation, other times silent. This was
country I had not seen before. When I had come from Bannerwell to the Bright Demesne after the battle,
it had been across the purlieus rather than by the long road. In any case, I had not been paying attention
then.
We came to the River Banner very late on the third day of travel, found no inn there but did find a
ferrymaster willing to have us sleep in the shed where the femes were kept. We hauled across at first
light, spent that night camped above a tiny hamlet no bigger than my fist, and rode into Schooltown the
following noon.
Somehow I had expected it to be changed, but it was exactly the same: little houses humped up the
hills, shops and Festival halls hulking along the streets, cobbles and walls and crooked roofs, chimneys
twisting up to breathe smoke into the hazy sky, and the School Houses on the ridge above. Havad's
House, where Mandor had been Gamesmaster. Dorcan's House across the way. Bilme's House, where it