"West,.Michelle.-.Memory.of.Stone.(txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

Cessaly did not run far.
Had she been afraid of Duvari, she would have, but she found
herself liking the man; he was very quiet. He wasn't cruel, but he wasn't kind; he was almost like the stonework on the walls: made of a single piece, and finished. He needed nothing from her.
The shadows were not afraid of him either. The moment he mentioned their voices, she heard them clearly, and they were some part of his. But although they touched him, he somehow did not touch them.
Important, that he never heard their voices.
She had used sapphires to capture quiet, and diamonds to capture light; the eagle was simply the ferocity of a flight that did not necessarily mean departure. She had made those in the round room because she had been afraid. But she had made three. One, she wore; because she wore it, she could now find her way upЧ and downЧthe winding stairs that led to the below.
But two she had simply held, and when she had seen DuvariЧ when he appeared at her side as the butterfly began its flightЧshe knew why: they were for him.
But she didn't like his "thank you" very much, and she wasn't certain if she wanted to see him again.
Maybe. Maybe she wanted to be able to see him.
She frowned. Things she had not tried now suggested themselves in the brilliant hues of the floor of the round room. She had her stone, of course, and she carved while she paced the floor, a hollow feeling in throat and stomach. She would ask Gilafas for what she needed. He always gave her what she needed.

He found her almost instantly, which should have stilled his anger; it did not. She was working, although not in a frenzy, and when he entered the chamberЧher workroom, as she often called itЧshe offered him a smile at home in the deep, soft rainbows cast by sun.
"Master Gilafas," she said, as he bent a moment and set his knees against those colors, "could you bring me a loom?"
"Yes. Yes, Cessaly. After lunch, I will bring you a loom." He did not tell her that such an undertaking would take more than a single morning, and did not ask her where the loom should be set; he did not speak to her of cost, the responsibility of expenses, the things that had always balanced his momentary, frenzied desires.
She did not care; could not.
And in truth, neither did he.

The loom should have been foreign to her; the working of metal was a gift that had been taught over the course of months. But he was not surprised to hear the clacking of the great, wooden monstrosity that now occupied some part of his workroom. There were no other rooms that could house it in Fabril's reachЧat least none that he was aware of, and if Cessaly knew otherwise, she did not choose to enlighten him.
He considered her carefully as he worked, and he did work; the voices were upon him, and they rode him unmercifully. He no longer knew if ocean's voice drove his hands, or if hers didЧor worse, if his own now moved him, with its anger and its self-contempt. Not good, and he knew it; not good to be driven by that last voice. Men died for less, grabbing in a frenzy at those things that might still itЧand not only the maker-born; all men with hollow power.
But it drove him.
Glass was before him, broken, colored, and around it a skein of lead; the things he knew better than he knew himself.
The loom was racked with the passage of her hands. It seemed fitting that they should work in this fashion. He was surprised that he was aware of her at all, for he knew by the feel of the glass in his hands that he should have been beyond her.
He failed in his duty, this day; he forgot to feed Cessaly. Forgot to feed himself.
Was not aware, until Sanfred forcibly removed his hands from his tools, of what he was making.
But Sanfred, having wrested the cutters from his hands paused, frozen, in front of his mosaic.
For the first time, Gilafas permitted himself to see what the glass contained.
Cessaly.
Cessaly, who, in bleeding hands, carried two things: a Rod with a crystal Orb that must deny all hint, all taint, of darkness, and a Sword whose edge glittered like the diamond wings of her eagles.
And he looked at the sky, red and dark, sun bleeding into the night of the horizon. Three days, for three more days, the light would wane early, the night sustain itself. The heart of the month of Henden would arrive, and with it, the longest night.

Duvari returned two days after his first visit with Cessaly. He came without warning, which was wise; had he offered warning, the Guildmaster would have forbidden him entrance, and personally would have dismissed anyone who disobeyed that order.
But he offered no such introduction; worse, he did not come alone. The companion he had chosen to bring to the Guildhall had caused concern and quiet outrage long before the two men had mounted the stairs that led to Fabril's reach.
Gilafas understood why the instant he laid eyes on the second man. His hair was long and white; it fell across his shoulders like the drape of an expensive cape. He had not chosen to bind it, which was unusual; Gilafas had never seen that hair escape the length of formal braids.
"Guildmaster," the man said.
"Member APhaniel," he replied coolly. "To what do I owe this . . . singular . . . honor?"
"To the busy schedule of Sigurne Mellifas, alas. The Council of the Magi occupies all of her waking time at the moment."
"I had heard there was some difficulty."
Meralonne APhaniel shrugged broadly. "Among mages, there is always difficulty."
"Among makers, the same can be said." But only grudgingly. "Although I confess that I have seldom had cause to resent the difficulties that keep Member Mellifas away, I resent them this day."
A pale brow rose in a face that was entirely too perfect on a man of Meralonne's age.
"It is understood. Sigurne is better at handling difficulties of this nature. In all ways. But perhaps I am not entirely truthful."
Gilafas snorted. "Of a certainty, you are not entirely truthful."
"No? Ah, well, perhaps my reputation precedes me." A glimmer of a smile then. "And one day, when we both have time, you must tell what that reputation is. The dour and incommunicative Duvari cedes not even the most paltry of rumors to the mage-born. He is significantly less . . . suspicious of the maker-born."
"Not, apparently, of their guildmaster."
"Well, no, of course not. The Guildmaster actually possesses power."
"Gentlemen," Duvari said coldly, "may I remind you of the scarcityЧand therefore the valueЧof our time?"
Meralonne reached into his robes and drew from it a long-stemmed pipe. "May I?"
"Of course."
"You might join me, Guildmaster."