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

land stretched away in myriad steps, bearing their hard-won crops of
limes and lemons, pomegranates and figs down into the orange groves,
planted in serried ranks along the valley floor so that the land below
appeared like a cloth boldly striped in alternating bands of dusty red and
glossy green, shot through with a single sweep of glinting blue where the
river ran through. Beyond, maybe sixty miles away or more, the land rose
white and rocky to form the foothills of the Farem Heights; beyond that
again rose the saw-toothed mountain range known as the Dragon's
Backbone, standing as clear and affirmative against the blue horizon as a
voice calling his name.
All I want, he thought, wringing the cloth out over the wall, is to be
away from here. To call my life my own.
But only the nomads could exist in the wild places beyond the bounds of
the Empire. Traveling with their placid packbeasts, the shaggy-looking
yeka, they traversed Elda, never putting down roots, never founding
settlements, nor claiming ground, never doing damage to the world. And
because they trod so lightly on the land, the land appeared to allow them
sustenance and passage through even its most inhospitable areas. The
only nomads he had encountered had been at the Allfair, where both
northerners and Empire folk traveled to do business, to trade their goods
and services, to make alliances, marriages and gain political favor. Had
this been the extent of the Fair's attractions, Saro would have found it dull
indeed: but the nomad people? known by the southerners as "the
Footloose," though they preferred to call themselves "the Wandering Folk"
? had also come to the annual fair, and their presence had provided
wonders aplenty. He remembered watching them arrive in their garishly
painted wagons and their outlandish costumes, bearing the fantastic array
of goods they brought with them to trade and to sell: lanterns and candles,
jewelry made from dragon claws and bear teeth; ornaments, pottery and
weavings; potions and charms. His fingers strayed unconsciously to the
small leather pouch he wore around his neck. Inside, there lay the most
dangerous object in the world, though when he had first come upon it at a
nomad peddler's stall, he had thought it merely a pretty trinket, a
moodstone which changed color according to the emotional state of the
person who handled it. Since that innocent time, however, he had seen it
absorb an old man's death and pass to him the wearer's gift? a deep, and
entirely unwanted, empathy with anyone with whom he made physical
contact. He had seen it flush red in anger and poisonous green with
jealousy; he had seen it flare to a white that hurt the eyes; he had seen it
steal men's souls out of their bodies and leave them stone dead upon the
ground. Until three months ago, he had thought he had seen the utmost
the moodstone could show him. Then, accessing some nexus of power he
could not comprehend, it had brought his brother back to the world; and
for that alone he felt like pounding it to dust and scattering its magic to
the winds.
Magic, he thought sourly. Surely it was only magic that was likely to
spirit him out of this place. If he could just take his courage in his hands
and ride out of here in the dead of night, he might chance upon a band of
Wanderers who would take him in. And then perhaps he might find Guaya
again, the little nomad girl whose grandfather Tanto had so needlessly