"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 2 - When True Night Falls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

lack of earth-power on the high seas had drained everything
dry. It had surprised - and frightened - everyone but the
Hunter.

How terrifying that must have been for the first
explorers, Damien thought. They'd have thought that
because they disdained sorcery, their tools would function
even here. Not realizing that even unconscious thought
affects the earth-fae . . . and therefore no tool that man
makes on land can be wholly free of its taint. Was that why
none of those ships were ever heard from again? Had they
lost their way in mid-ocean, when their instruments failed
them? Or staggered into some port by blind guesswork,
perhaps, knowing that a return journey would be next to
impossible? He hungered to know. Five expeditions,
hundreds of men and women . . . and something had
spawned an Evil here, more deadly and more subtle than
anything the west had produced. He hungered to uncover it.
He ached to destroy it.

Soon, he promised himself. Soon. One step at a time.

He stood in the wheelhouse of the Golden Glory,
Tarrant's own telescope in hand. Beside him was a table
overlaid with maps, the topmost a copy of one of the
Hunter's. It showed the eastern continent as viewed from
above, with elevations clearly marked in the neat
mechanical printing of the colony's founders. A survey
map, no doubt - or more likely a copy of one. Tarrant had
lost enough things of value on the last trip to be wary of
traveling with originals. On top of it were scattered the
instruments which the pilot had used to establish their
position, and Damien watched as she pushed aside a
polished brass astrolabe in order to scrutinize a new section
of coast. It said a lot about her current state of mind that she
had chosen that tool over the more sophisticated
instruments available; when Rasya was tense, she liked her
tools primitive and simple.

At last she said, "If we're where I think we are, then
there's an island missing."

"Ocean's risen," the captain reminded her. His own eye
remained fixed on the distant cliffs. "Figure a lot'll be
missing, from the time that map was made. Don't sweat it."

"Thanks," she said dryly. "You're not the one whose job
it is to see that we don't run aground."

They were a study in opposites - so much so that it was