"Tad Williams - The War of the Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Tad)

and get your stuff and find an apartment or something."
"You're throwing me out of my own house? I pay half the rent!"
"Barely. But it was my house first, anyway, remember? I only let you move in because Laney was
getting a place with Brian and it was easier than putting an ad in the paper."
He stood, full of diffuse rage and with a hole in the center of him that seemed like it could never be
filled. "Is that all it was, huh? Easier than putting in an ad?"
It took a moment, but her expression softened. "No, that wasn't all it was. Of course not. I loved you,
Theo."
"Loved." He closed his eyes. Everything had just liquified and swirled away from him, his entire life
gurgling down the drain.
"I probably still love you, if that's what you're asking. But I can't live with you any more. It's too much
work, trying to believe in us. I'm too old for fairy tales."
When he passed her parents in the hallway, their embarrassed expressions showing that they knew damn
well what their daughter had just told him, he wanted to say something cutting to them, something bitter
and clever, but he was too empty, too angry, too sad. The only thing he could think of was "It's not fair!"
and that was not the kind of thing thirty-year-old men were supposed to say.

THE SILENT PRIMROSE MAIDEN
Half a day's drive outside the great city, far enough away to intrude only lightly on the consciences of
families and friends тАФ consciences underdeveloped by both habit and breeding in many of the leading
clans тАФ the mansion stood. It had once belonged to a scion of the upstart Zinnia House, but the fortunes
of that family had fallen as swiftly as they had earlier risen, and although it still bore their name and
crest above the door, the former inhabitants had sold the huge house long ago and moved to more
modest digs in the city, a collection of family apartments near the waterfront where they could keep a
close watch on their shipping interests and dream of better days gone тАФ and, they hoped, better days
still to come.
But Zinnia Manor remained, nestled in a fold of the forested hills of True Arden, surrounded by grounds
that although less carefully cultivated than in its happiest days were still green and sumptuous and, most
important of all, large enough to create privacy.


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The manor had three or four times as many inhabitants now as when the family still owned it; the
administrator, Mr. Lungwort, a small, dapper fellow whose rudimentary wings had resisted all attempts
at cosmetic removal, growing back several times and thus forcing him to try to hide them with carefully
padded suits, claimed it was more like managing a village than a house. Besides the regular residents
there were several dozen staff, including cooks, maids, janitors, and gardeners, not to mention the nurses
and orderlies. Two alienists and a certified chirurgeon were on duty at all times, and other practitioners
were kept on call for when things got busy, as they often did during full moons.
In such a large facility, with an impressive catalog of patients whose conditions were vivid and even
occasionally dangerous тАФ inverted shadows, spontaneous creation, infectious hallucination, and several
variants of uncontrollable shapeshifting тАФ it was strange that the most noteworthy resident should be so
quiet and inoffensive. She had her own suite of rooms on the south side of the manor, courtesy of her
famous and powerful family (which, except for occasional visits from one brother, wanted nothing to do
with her anymore) but she might as well have been living in a ditch beside the highway for all the notice
or advantage she took of her surroundings. Day after day the morning sun splashed into her room, but
she never raised her eyes to the windows. Day after day attendants came and got her out of the bed
where they had placed her the night before, then washed and dressed her, manipulating her slack body as