"Janny Wurts - The Cycle of Fire1 - Stormwarden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wurts Janny)

clothed simply in wool.

"Ye're wanted, sorcerer, at Adin's Landing."

"Then there has been trouble, yes?" Anskiere's light eyes flicked over the men confronting him. No one
answered, and no one met his glance. The breezes fanned the fishermen's weathered cheeks, and their
sea boots scuffed over pebbled stone and marsh grass. Their large, twine-callused hands stayed jammed
in the pockets of oilskin jackets.

The Stormwarden's gaze dropped. He laid a slim capable hand on the door frame, careful to move
slowly, without threat. "I will come. Give me a minute to bank the fire."

Anskiere stepped inside. A low mutter arose at his back, and someone spat. If the sorcerer noticed, he
gave no sign. The distant sigh of the breakers filled the interval until his return. A gray cloak banded with
black hooded his silver head, and in his hand he carried a knotted satchel of dyed leather. Somehow he
had guessed his summons might be permanent. No one from Imrill Kand had seen either satchel or cloak
since the sorcerer's arrival five winters past.

A tear in the clouds spilled sunlight like gilt over the shore flats. Anskiere paused. His eyes swept across
the rocky spit of land he had chosen as home and fixed on the ocean's horizon. The fishermen stirred
uneasily, but a long interval passed before Anskiere recalled his attention from the sea. He barred the
cottage door.

"I am ready." He moved among them, his landsman's stride sharply delineated from the rolling gait of the
fishermen. Through the long walk over the tor, he did not speak, and never once did he look back.

Angled like a gull's nest against the cliff overlooking the harbor, Adin's Landing was visible to the
Stormwarden and his escort long ahead of arrival. Towering over the familiar jumble of shacks, stacked
salt barrels, and drying fish nets was a black crosshatch of rigging; five warships rode at anchor. A sixth
was warped to the fishers' wharf. The town streets, nor-mally empty at noon, seethed with activity,
clotted here and there by dark masses of men at arms.

Anskiere paused at the tor's crest and pushed his hood back. "King's men?" A gust of wind hissed
through the grass at his feet, perhaps summoned by him as warning of his first stir of anger. But his voice
remained gentle. "Is this why you called me?"

The ugly man clenched his hands. "Anskiere, don't ask!" He gestured impatiently down the trail.

The sorcerer remained motionless.

"Mordan, he has a right to know." The other's outburst sounded anguished and reluctant. "Five years he
has served as Stormwarden, and not a life lost to the sea. He deserves an answer at least."

Mordan's lips tightened and his eyes flinched away from the sorcerer. "We cannot shelter you!"

"I did not ask shelter." Anskiere sought the one who had spoken in his behalf, and found he knew him,
though the boy had grown nearly to manhood. "Tell me, Emien."

The young man flinched unhappily at the mention of his name.
"Emien, why do King's ships and King's men trouble with Imrill Kand?"