"Jude Fisher - Fool's Gold 02 - Wild Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fisher Jude)

capes, even if the hound, Ferg, had tried to lick it off. One good gale was
likely to whip it away; but the weather looked set fair to see her safely
beyond the point of no return. She stretched her arm up to reach for
another of the lines off the yard and was assailed by a rich, rank stench.
Whoo! She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Wearing Fent's clothing for the
duration of the voyage was going to be punishment in itself. A picture of
her twin, securely gagged and bound to the central pillar of the main barn,
eyes sparking blue murder as she and Halli bade him farewell at the door,
flickered briefly and satisfyingly through her mind.
Then Katla turned her face to the ocean and grinned with the utmost
glee.


Chapter 2: Tanto

"TAKE this vile stuff away! Are you trying to poison me now, not
content with having rendered me a gross and stinking cripple?"
Saro watched the silver plate spin through the air and hit the wall on
the other side of the bedchamber, emptying its contents down the pale
terra-cotta like vomit. It was curious, he thought, that his brother could
have the strength required to hurl a plate so hard that it left a dent in the
plaster, but be apparently too weak to feed himself.
It had been three months since Tanto Vingo had regained
consciousness after nearly succumbing to the trauma of the wounds he
had received at the Allfair, and the equally dangerous ministrations of the
doctors which had followed. Their parents, Favio and Illustria, had been
tearful with relief and gratitude at the return of their favorite son? albeit
in his new form; but on hearing that familiar voice rend the air of the
darkened room on the night when the merchants had passed through,
with their rancorous gossip and the fateful moodstones which had played
their part in resurrecting the patient, Saro's heart had contracted in
misery.
He had much preferred his brother when he lay like a dead thing,
suppurating silently.
"Clean it up, you toad! Lick it off the wall, like the revolting spew? it's
all you're fit for, anyway." Fat tears welled in Tanto's eyes and burst out
onto his pale, fleshy cheeks. He balled his chubby fists and started to
batter the bedclothes with them. Then he began to roar in the way he did
when there was no one else but Saro to hear him. "Why me? Why has the
Goddess visited this mischance on me? why not you? You're such a
shit-filled, cowardly little worm? what good are you in the world? No one
loves you, no one expected anything of you: to have seen you reduced to
this would have been no loss. But me? "
The wailing grew to tidal proportions until Tanto's face went a putrid
purple and he was forced to stop to gasp for breath.
Saro studiously ignored this outburst, as he had learned to do (nothing
infuriated Tanto more) and applied himself to scraping the remains of the
roasted chicken, peppers, onions, and zucchini off the wall. They had been
pureed, like infant food, since Tanto refused even to make the effort to
chew; but they had been prepared by their mother's own hand, mixed