"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 1 - Black Sun Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

with it. Desire. For the one thing on Erna that Senzei might never have. The one
precious thing that Nature had denied him.
In the other room another bit of crystal fell, and shattered noisily against the
floor.
He wept.
Not until the sunlight was wholly gone and the worst of the tremors had
subsided - the immediate tremors, at any rate - did the stranger come up out of
his subterranean shelter. The fae still vibrated with tectonic echoes; it was the
work of mere moments to read them, determine their origin, and speculate upon
the implications.
The Forest will shake, he decided. Soon. Too big a seismic gap there to
ignore. And the rakhlands . . . But there was no way to know that, for sure. No
news had come out of the rakhlands for generations, of earthquakes or lack of
them - or anything else, for that matter. He could do no more then speculate
that the plate boundaries there would be stressed past endurance . . . but he
had speculated that many times before, with no way of ever confirming his
hypothesis. In a world where Nature’s law was not absolute, but rather reactive,
one could never be certain.
Then he squatted down close to the earth and touched one gloved finger to
its surface. Watching the earth-fae as it flowed about that obstacle, tasting its
tenor through the contact.
The current had changed.
Impossible.
For a moment he simply watched it, aware that he might have erred. Then
he sat back on his heels and looked off into the distance, watching the flow of
his taint upon the current. And yes, it was different. A minute change, but it was
noticeable.
 He watched it for a moment more, then corrected himself: Improbable. But
true. Any bit of the fae contaminated by his person should have scurried off
toward the Forest, subject to that whirlpool of malignant power. It took effort for
him not to travel there himself, not to unconsciously prefer that direction every
time he made a decision to move. That the taint of his personal malevolence was
being channeled elsewhere meant that some new factor was involved. A Working
or a being - more likely the latter - headed in this direction. Focused upon
Jaggonath in both its malevolence and its hunger.
It would have to be very focused, to come here against the current. And
nasty as hell, to have the effect it did.
Nastier than the Hunter, perhaps?
The stranger laughed, softly.
If not for the siren - the damned warning be damned, he thought -
Jaggonath’s Patriarch might never have known there was an earthquake. That,
and the sloshing of tea over the side of his cup. He picked up the delicate porce-
lain piece and sipped it thoughtfully. While the siren screamed. And some
damned fool of a sorcerer screamed, too - but that served him right. There was
no free ride in this world, least of all with the fae. It was time they learned that,
all of them.
It occurred to him briefly that he should have warned his visitor about that
particular danger. Coming from the westlands, where quakes were less frequent
and far less severe, he might not be aware of it. Might even try to harness that
surging flow, to bend it to his sorcerous will.