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

thrill her into a greater understanding of love, of life, of the world and her
place in it. But he moved and talked as if in a daze when he was with her;
and when he was away, she knew nothing of him.
 It would, she pondered, leaning closer to trace the chiseled line of his
mouth with the tip of her finger, be curious to withdraw the glamour and
see just who this man she had chosen to ally herself to might truly be. But
she did not yet dare to do it.
And so, she moved farther down the bed until her face was level with
her husband's chest. Then she laid her head down upon him and listened
to the steady draw of his breath, to the powerful slow beat of his heart?
like a tide, like a tide? and wondered whether she would ever learn what it
was to be human in this world of Elda.


Chapter 1: Intrigues

Aran Aranson, Master of Rockfall, stood in the doorway of his smithy
with the moon leering over his shoulder like the eye of some vengeful
giant, and watched with disbelief as the dead woman came to her feet.
In front of him, his second son Fent was on his knees, gazing up at the
apparition he had killed only moments earlier, while his only daughter,
Katla Aransen, lay as still as stone on the cold floor with blood all over her
face and hands. The dead woman took a step toward him and the
moonlight shone from her single eye so that she looked like an afterwalker,
recently returned from the quiet of the burial howe to haunt those who
had done it wrong in life, to straddle the rooftree of the houses till the
timbers broke, to hag-ride the livestock till they ran mad; to terrorize all
and sundry until the whole settlement was cursed and abandoned.
His hand tightened on the pommel of the dagger he wore at his waist
belt. Severing the head, that's the only thing that works with ghasts, old
Gramma Garsen had told them, her face lit ghoulishly by the embers of
the firepit, as he sat with all the other little boys of the steading, held rapt
and terrified breathless by her words, You have to cut off the head and
bury it as far from the body as you can. But would such simple advice
work on a seither, one of the legendary magic-channelers of the Northern
Isles? Aran drew the dagger and held it out before him, knowing it an
inadequate weapon for the task at hand. Katla's Red Sword, the prize
weapon she had forged last year, with a carnelian set into the hilt, lay out
of his reach; but if he could disable the seither with the dagger, then
spring past her to retrieve it?
"Put away that pin, Aran Aranson."
The seither's voice was deep and resonant: too powerful for a woman
heart-pierced only moments earlier. He found his hand faltering, as if
there were more power in her words than just their meaning.
"Would you bring down the same curse on yourself as I placed on your
murderous son?"
May all your ventures meet with disaster.
Aran had never thought himself as a particularly superstitious man, but
now he felt an icy dread upon him as if the dead woman had reached out
and placed a chilly finger on his heart.