"Chalker, Jack L - Changewinds 3 - War of the Maelstrom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

twenties but far older in the eyes, where it revealed damage to
the spirit. She was not conscious of what her eyes showed,
although it drew the attention of all others, she was dressed
in a full-length blue satin robe without belt to conceal the
chubbiness that only she thought was important.

She stood on the balcony of the castle looking not at the
vast forests and high mountains beyond, but rather at the sky,
where clouds seemed to swirl and dance in unnatural combi-
nations for her amusement, as indeed they did. They had
always done her bidding, first with her mother's help, and
then, after the Akhbreed bastards had slain her mother, fully
in command herself of the weather and storms that most
others, even powerful wizards, found impossible to control.

Her mastery over these clouds and this weather and the
strangeness with which the sky moved terrified most who
could see it, even those who lived in the region and were now
used to her experiments, pranks, and moods, but, to her, at
least, something was very wrong.

The clouds suddenly stopped their wild movements and
began to sort themselves out into more normal patterns as the
natural conditions were allowed to reassert their influence
upon the patterns. She uttered a mild curse of frustration
under her breath, turned, and stalked back inside her rooms,
but she did not remain there. Instead, she went to the door,
where guards with beaked faces and hands resembling birdlike
travesties of her hands stood guard in crimson uniforms, pikes
at the ready.

She went down the winding stairs as rapidly as her robe,

2 jack L. Chalker

slippers, wd dignity would allow and then stalked down a
hallway that was the only unguarded one in the entire castle.
It had no need to be; he who lived and worked on this level
was one to be protected from rather than the other way
•round, and only she of any of them would dare even enter
this one level without first asking permission.

Klittichom, Horned Demon of the Snows, master sorcerer
of the Akhbreed, was in his study working as he usually did
on his magic box. No one else there understood what the box
was or what it did; it was one of those great magical things
that only the Akhbreed sorcerers had or understood, although
it looked somewhat like a mechanical device, with a lot of
little buttons all clumped together, on each of which was a
different magical symbol none but the Akhbreed could deci-