"John C. Wright - Orphans of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wright John C)

were titanic, the darkness was from Tartarus, and the beasts were vast enough
to swallow the sun and moon.
When the two of us broke into the Headmaster's library, I climbed up to wipe
with my skirt the dust from the glass-covered map that stood above the volumes
and antique folios of the oaken bookshelf. The map showed Wales to the North
and Cornwall to the South. To the East were English towns famous from history
and legend: Bristol and Bath, Hastings and Canterbury and Cambridge. There was
London, queen of all cities. Beyond the White Cliffs of Dover was the Channel
and Calais on the coast of France, gateway to the continent, to places rich
and bright and beautiful and ever so far away.
Colin rolled his eyes, which were large, startlingly blue, and very
expressive. "And you believe our world is the one depicted on that map?" His
voice dripped silky contempt.
He ducked his head to peer up at my under-things, but scam-pered back when I
aimed a kick at his head.
3.
Quentin, on the other hand, implied the Old Road (which ran through the
forest) constituted the boundary to the South. He argued that the Straight
Tracks were older than the Roman road built atop them; older man the standing
stone we found among the gray hills of the Downs; older than the green mound
on the South Lawn.
He spoke of ley lines, and energy paths and mysterious con-nections between
certain hilltops, standing stones, the crumbled ruins of the tower on a rock
in the bay we all called the "lighthouse." He had charts to show their
alignments with various rising and setting stars on certain dates. He used an
astrology chart from the back of one of Mrs. Wren's magazines to show, wim
some plane geometry, why the Straight Tracks defined the transition point
between different astral domains. The argument was incomprehensible, and that
made it easier to believe.
Where Colin was loud, Quentin was quiet, indrawn, unassuming. He never claimed
to be a warlock, and therefore we all thought he was.
Vanity and I saw him on the Manor House roof tiles one Oc-tober midnight,
talking to a winged shape too large to be a crow. It took flight, and we saw
its outline against the moon.
4.
Victor was more logical. He argued that the Southern boundary was the new
highway B-4247, which led from the coast to Oxwich Green. This new highway was
on our side of the forest, and cut through it in places. Following the highway
toward the bay led to the fishing village of Abertwyi, from which the island
of Worm's Head could be seen. Victor said the highway right-of-way followed
the legal boundary as defined in the courthouse records for Shire of West
Glamorgan, which listed the metes and bounds of the Estate.
We knew Victor had disappeared when the group all went to Mass one Sunday in
Abertwyi-town. We did not know how he got over the stone wall surrounding the
churchyard and courthouse unseen, or picked the lock on the massive iron
grate, forged into fanciful shapes of leaves and black roses, which blocked
the courthouse doors. Victor just was able to do things like that
We know what he had been looking for, though. We all knew: records of our
parents.
"I was naive to expect our records to be there," he confided in me curtly.