"Lynn Flewelling - Tamir 01 - The Bone Doll's Twin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flewelling Lynn)

Notes:
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Current e-book version is .9(most glaring formatting errors have been corrected,
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This book has not been proofed, so there are occasional errors.
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Book Information:
Genre: Fantasy
Author: Lynn Flewelling
Name: The Bone Doll’s Twin
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Lynn Flewelling

The Bone Doll’s Twin



Part One
Document Fragment Discovered in the East Tower of the Oreska House

An old man looks back at me from my mirror now. Even among the other wizards here in
Rhim-inee, I'm a relic of forgotten times.
My new apprentice, little Nysander, cannot imagine what it was like to be a free wizard of the
Second Oreska. At Nysander's birth this beautiful city had already stood for two centuries above
her deep harbor. Yet to me it shall always and forever be "the new capital."
In the days of my youth, a whore's cast-off like Nysander would have gone unschooled. If he
were lucky he might have ended up as a village weather-caller or soothsayer. More likely, he
would have unwittingly killed someone and been stoned as a witch. Only the Lightbearer knows
how many god-touched children were lost before the advent of the Third Oreska.
Before this city was built, before this great house of learning was gifted to us by its founder, we
wizards of the Second Oreska made our own way and lived by our own laws.
Now, in return for service to the Crown we have this House, with its libraries, archives, and its
common history. I am the only one still living who knows how dear a price was paid for that.
Two centuries. Three or four lifetimes for most people; a mere season for those of us touched
by the Lightbearer's gift. "We wizards stand apart, Arkoniel," my own teacher, lya, told me when
I was scarcely older than Nysander is now. "We are stones in a river's course, watching the rush
of life whirl past."
Standing by Nysander's door tonight, watching the lad sleep, I imagined tya's ghost beside me,
and for a moment it seemed as if it was my younger self I gazed at; a plain, shy nobleman's son
who'd shown a talent for animal charming. While guesting at my father's estate, lya recognized
the magic in me and revealed it to my family. I wept the day I left home with her.
 How easy it would be to call those tears foreshadowing—that device the playwrights are so
enamored of these days. But I have never quite believed in fate, despite all the prophecies and
oracles that shaped my life. There's always a choice in there somewhere. I've seen too often how
people make their own future through the balance of each day's little kindnesses and cruelties.