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

to first impressions, it seemed that these two great sentinel towers were
no mere natural feature of the landscape for, as they closed upon them, a
myriad of tiny lights were revealed inside the rock, one upon another, to
the height of maybe ten longhouses. Tiny figures moved past the lights at
various junctures so that from a distance the lights seemed to jump and
skitter; then a web of stairways and arches came into focus, running from
the waterline to the summits, winding around and about the towers and
into the cliff face on either side of the inlet.
It was a miracle of architecture: Katla stood there, hands on the
gunwale, staring up into the night sky until her neck cricked, until she felt
the touch of a finger drawn lightly down the line of her chin, which made
her leap away with a shout. "Sur's nuts! Keep your hands off me!"
"Much better without the beard, my dear, if I may say so." Tarn pox
was at her shoulder, his keen eyes boring into her, his white teeth
gleaming in the silvery light. "And you really should be much more
grateful that I did not cast you off in the faering and send you back to your
da." He took another step toward her, but Katla dodged away.
"You're a randy old goat," she said with a grin. "Go find yourself a
nanny to tup." She stared back up at the pillar.
"Extraordinary, isn't it? A work of genius, or madness, if you believe the
tales."
"I've never seen anything like it," she said, and it was true: the houses of
the Westman Isles were sturdy and constructed low to withstand the fierce
winds off the Northern Ocean, and all she had seen on her visit to the
Allfair had been pavilions and tents and simple booths; nothing made to
last or serve any function beyond that of temporary accommodation. She
had heard, though, that the great cities of Istria? Jetra and Cera and
Forent? were built around magnificent castles which mazed the eye and
took the breath right out of your lungs.
"The Pillars were hollowed out in the time of King Raik Horsehair, when
the Eyrans were first driven north to these islands. He fortified the city in
many cunning ways, and when he fell in the battle of the Sharking Straits,
his wife carried on his work. They say it's impregnable, you know. Much
like you? "
Katla rolled her eyes at him. "I know," she said crossly, ignoring his
inference. "It's what the city's name signifies? Halbau? 'safe house' in the
old form, and no enemy has ever sneaked past its defenses."
From the watchtower, a man shouted something that she could make
neither head nor tail of, though the sound carried clearly in the night air;
and after a moment Tarn shouted back, "White Rose!"
Katla looked at him.
"The password," he said with a shrug. "It changes every few weeks; but
since the king returned with the nomad woman they've all had to do with
her: Rosa Eldi; the Rose of the North; Heart's Desire; the King's Rose."
"And what would happen if you didn't know the password?" Katla
asked, puzzledly.
Tarn grinned. "Look there," he said, pointing to the rocks on which the
tower was founded. A rim of white surf marked its seaward edge. "And
there." He indicated the opposite pillar at the same level.
Katla strained her eyes in the darkness. "I can see nothing."