"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 3 - When Demons Walk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

The manicured lawn was tiny: Land was expensive in this part of the city. The tall greenery that
surrounded it kept out the faint illumination provided by the street torches as well as the somewhat
brighter light of the moon. Sham knelt where she was, watching the dark mansion intently for movement
that might indicate someone was inside.

The three-storied edifice was newer than the hedge around it; the Eastern noble she was robbing had
purchased an old manor and had it torn down and rebuilt in the Cybellian style as soon as the fighting had
died down. Open-air windows on the second and third floor might have been useful in the hot, dry
climate of Cybelle, but Landsend, despite its southern location, was wet and chilly in the winter months as
the ocean currents brought cold waters from the other side of the world to the cliffs of Southwood.

She approved heartily of the new style of architecture; after all, she didn’t intend to live in it. The
open windows, even shuttered, made her job much easier than the closed, small-windowed native styles.
As she studied the building, she warmed her hands against her body. The night air was cool and warm
hands gripped better than cold ones.

According to her informant, the owners of this particular house were currently enjoying a se’nnight at
the hot pools a day’s ride from Landsend. Some entrepreneurial Cybellian had taken over the abandoned
buildings there, turning them into a pilgrimage temple to Altis, the god of the Cybellians.

The Cybellians didn’t believe in the restless spirits who were responsible for the abandonment of the
old settlement. They called the native people “backward” and “superstitious.” Sham wondered if the
protection of Altis would keep the ghosts under control—and hoped that it wouldn’t.

However, she wasn’t going to wait for the Wraiths of the Medicine Pools to attack the Cybellians. In
her own small way, she continued the war that had officially been lost twelve years ago to the god-driven
Cybellians and their eastern allies who crossed the Great Swamp to conquer the world.

Using almost nonexistent hand-holds, she pulled herself up the walls. Setting her calloused fingers and
the hard, narrow soles of her knee-high boots in the slight ledges where mortar separated stone, she
climbed carefully to a second-floor window and sat on the narrow ledge to inspect it closer. The lip of
one shutter covered the opening where both met, making it more difficult for a thief to release the inner
latch.

Her informant, the younger brother of the owner’s former mistress, had said that the wooden shutters
were held closed by a simple hook-latch. A common enough fastening, but not the only possibility, and it
was necessary for her to know exactly what she was dealing with in order to open it.

Closing her eyes, she put a forefinger on the wooden panels and muttered a few words in a language


that had been out of use for living memory. The shutter was too thick for her to hear the faint click of the
latch hook falling against the wood, but she could tell it was done when they opened slightly.

She slid to one side of the window ledge and used her fingertips to open one of the shutters.
Stealthily, she entered the building and pulled the panel closed, hooking the latch behind her. Magic was
a useful tool for a thief, especially when her victims, for the most part, didn’t believe in it.

She stood in a small sitting room that smelled of linseed oil and wax. With the shutters closed the