"Roberta Gellis - Thrice Bound" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gellis Roberta)

As she looked, the door behind her swung shut and she was in darkness. The temptation to form a mage
light flicked at her, but because of the watcher, she fixed her mind on regret, thinking "too weak,"
stretched a hand to the wall and began to feel her way from step to step. She had long been aware that
her father could scry her, or summon some otherworld creature to watch her, but she was not certain
how deep that scrying or the creature's seeing went. She had never been able to discover whether it
could read her surface thoughts as well as her position and expression.

At least neither scrying or summoned slave could read below the surface; her mother had assured her of
that, but Asterie was not sure whether he or his creature could read thoughts at all. She feared he could
but knew he couldn't reach into the back of the mind; Hekate had proved to herself that she could safely
bury her satisfaction there.

Slowly, step by step, she felt her way down the stairway that curved steeply along the side of a natural
sinkhole. From far below came a faint echo—moving water? her own steps? As far as Hekate knew, no
light had ever exposed those black depths.

Under her hand the smooth baked brick of the wall changed to rough-dressed stone. Hekate hesitated.
The pull of her father's will intensified. Soon it might become pain. Fear made her heart clench. Hatred
and a despairing resistance kept her still, clinging to the wall, panting for breath. The pull grew no
stronger. Hekate waited, letting her breathing ease, clutching her tiny triumph to her.

The crone's pretense of weakness had a second advantage in addition to reminding Perses of his failure;
it increased the time before she had to face him. And a third. Hekate swallowed. Before she'd worn the
guise of the crone, Hekate had begun to dislike the way her father looked at her. She tried to assure
herself that he wouldn't violate his own daughter, and truly she had never believed he lusted after her.
What he wanted was almost more foul. Coupling was a doorway to binding a person close enough to
enslave her or suck out her power.

A stab of rage almost tore through the fear and submission Hekate kept in the forefront of her mind. It
was through coupling that Perses had seized and subdued her mother. Asterie hadn't always been the
near-mindless shadow she now was. Bit by bit, from a whisper here, a word from there, a sad sigh and
headshake, Hekate had learned that before she married Perses, her mother had been a strong sorceress
with an unequaled ability to create spells.

Asterie could still create spells, although she could no longer cast them, and in secret, when Perses was
busy with his own sorceries or when they could escape to the mysterious shelter of the shrine in the
forest, she had taught her daughter all she knew. But that was in years past. As Hekate matured, Asterie
faded until she scarcely seemed to know her daughter and would pass her when they met in a chamber
without a word or a sign of recognition. At first Hekate had stopped her, spoken to her, embraced her,
but of late she had given up trying.

The stair ended. A corridor darker, if possible, than the stairway was an emptiness before Hekate's
extended hand. She hobbled forward slowly, favoring the aches in her knees and back. A few steps
brought her outstretched hand into bruising contact with a wall. Hekate hissed with pain and frustration.
Doubtless Perses was laughing. No matter how careful she was, she met that wall too hard. Perhaps he
had some way of moving it.

She wondered, feeling her way along the wall to the right, whether he hoped she would break a bone.
The form of the crone was no illusion; in it she was truly old and had all the ills great age brought with it.