"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 01 - Sorcery Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

he cast about him that they formed the islands and skerries of Eyra) until at last he had
disappeared into the fogs at the edge of the world of Elda. There, resigned to the fact that
he would never find his way back home, he had raised a great stronghold beneath the
waves, deep down on the ocean bed. This, the Eyrans called "the Great Howe," or
sometimes "the Great Hall." Lost sailors shared the long table there with Sur, it was said:
and once one member of your clan had drowned and gone to the Howe, it was well known
others would soon follow.
Katla had heard that the Istrians had a different tale to tell. They had no love of the
sea, and did not believe even in the existence of Sur, an appalling heresy of itself. Instead,
they prayed to some fire deity, a creature—a woman—rumored to have come walking
naked out of a volcano in the Golden Mountains, unscathed by the lava, leading a great cat
on a silver chain. Falla the Merciful—that's what they called her: a misnomer if ever there
was one, since in her name the southerners burned unbelievers and wrongdoers by the
thousand, sacrifices to appease her and hold at bay the molten heart of the world.
 Sur's Castle. Her fingers began to itch. She'd go and look at it first thing the next
morning: there would surely be a route by which she could climb to the top. Fighting and
jewelry and monster skins—and a new rock to climb: truly the Allfair was a wondrous
event, to encompass such diversity.
She lay there, smiling at this thought, until she became drowsy. When at last she
closed her eyes, she dreamed that she could feel the pull of the great rock deep inside her,
as if it was somehow a part of the Navigator's Star and she nothing but a lodestone, drawn
to it through a dark sea.
At first light the next morning, Katla kicked off the sealskin and crept away from the
camp like a fox from the coop. In this area of the shoreline, no one else stirred. Up the
shore she went, as fast as she could, the loose black ashy ground loud beneath her feet. In
the shadow of Sur's Castle, she stared up. The great rock reared over her, enveloping her
in its chill shadow, seeming higher, suddenly—and steeper, too—than her first assessment
of it from the beach. Dark clouds had gathered above it, promising rain: she'd have to be
quick. Her stomach fluttered and her heart gave a little thump: a familiar reaction before
she attempted a climb, but a useful one, she'd found: anxiety tended to sharpen her
concentration. Above her stretched a vertical chock-filled fissure—the most obvious line
of ascent as far as she could see. It looked wide enough in places to jam a knee for balance,
narrowing down to a crack that should accommodate a fist above the halfway mark. On
either side of the line, little rugosities could clearly be seen where the crystals in them
caught the early light: useful footholds, Katla thought. She reached up and found her first
handhold: a jagged flake just inside the crack. It felt cold and a little damp beneath her
fingers: sharp, too, but solid. As she took hold of it, a line of energy ran through her hand
and jolted up her arm. For Katla, this had become a familiar sensation: this magical
connection with rock and stone and the minerals they bore. She waited until the burst of
energy had charged through her chest and up into her head, waited for the disorienting
buzz to die away, and then gave herself to the rock. Letting the hold take her weight, she
swung a foot up into the crack.
The move off the ground was always the hardest. Once established in the fissure, she
readjusted her balance and went easily upward, hand over hand, methodical and careful,
occasionally stepping outside the crack for better stability when the angle became too
steep. The texture of the stuff reminded her of the sea-eaten cliffs back home: all pitted
and sharp-edged from the corrosive appetite of the waves, and as painful on the skin as
barnacles. She could feel it biting into the soles of her feet even through the leather. Sur
knew what her hands would look like by the top, even though she'd been placing them
with more consideration than usual. It was not that she was a vain girl—far from it: but