"Emerson, Ru - Night Threads 01 - The Calling of the Three UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo)

when ill health and age began to increasingly influence his de-
cisions. He had turned recently to religion, spending increasing
amounts of time and vast sums of money on festivals and galas
for Podhru's motley blend of gods—perhaps hoping they could
cure his ills on earth, or possibly to ensure his welcome beyond
it. He left negotiations for trading pacts to his advisors so he
would have more time for the artists, poets and musicians who
cluttered his court; for celebrations and plays. He no longer
hunted, but pursued a lifelong interest in the breeding of game
and the tame herds on his estates. This left little time for any-
thing outside Andar Perigha, but then, Shesseran the Golden
cared for little outside his city, his household and his preserves,
particularly so long as everything outside that worid functioned
quietly and well.

He maintained the trust of his many-times great-grandfather
in his Dukes, but with less cause. The men who ruled the nine
little kingdoms no longer held immediate gratitude to the Em-
peror for what had so long been theirs, and their primary con-
cerns were their own well-being, their own households and
families, their own pockets. And there was not one of them who
did not know how great the cause would need to be for Shes-
seran to interfere in Duchy matters.

The Emperor's second error was held to be his relaxation of
the five-hundred-year-old prohibition against Hell-Light and its
Light-Shaping Triads. Shesseran had not intentionally permitted
the return of Shapers, even though it had been so many years
since the rise of Hell-Light and the resulting civil war. Some-
how, Shapers had been included among other priests when the

WE CALLINQ OF T:HE FHREE 3

bill was presented to the Emperor, listing religions and cults that
would no longer be actively persecuted.

It seemed unnecessary to fret over Hell-Light, after so many
hundreds of years: Shapers were few, Triads extremely rare. But
several major trading families and at least two nobles breathed
relieved sighs that they would no longer need to hide household
magicians who touched on Hell-Light. Certain nobles, however,
kept Triads and prudently kept them still secret. One never knew.
after all.

It is also held that Shesseran the Golden suffered only three
reversals of tuck in his fortune-blessed reign. The first was the
invasion of Podhru Harbor by Lasanach raiders and the simul-
taneous attack on distant, northern Dro Pent that cut its trade
lines with the Gyn Hort nomads; the second, that two Lasanachi
died suddenly and woundless within Dro Pent walls. The plague