"Julia Gray - Guardian 04 - The Red Glacier" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

Ostan waved aside any gratitude.
'What made you change your mind?' Terrel asked.
'The sad look in those eyes of yours,' the captain replied. He'd spoken with a
straight face, but several of the crew were smiling, and Terrel knew he
wouldn't get a straight answer.
Although Ostan's reference to Terrel's eyes had been a joke, the healer was
used to people making remarks about them. His eyes were indeed remarkable. The
irises were almost colourless, like pale diamonds — which gave the impression
that they were almost crystalline - with only occasional rainbow flashes deep
within. Strangers often found them intimidating at first, but as Terrel
pointed out, they were just eyes. If necessary, he could disguise them - and
other aspects
of his appearance - through the use of the glamour, the trick of making people
see what they wanted to see. But he only ever used this now as a last resort.
As Alyssa was fond of telling him, there was a price to pay for such magic,
and in this instance it came at the cost of making himself vulnerable to his
twin's malign influence.
The weather worsened during the day, and Ostan kept his crew busy with almost
continuous adjustments to their course and the set of the sails. When a ship
was out of sight of land, navigation could be difficult, and Terrel knew that
the seamen used a variety of observations to help them. Ostan and his
second-in-command studied the angle of the waves, cloud patterns, the position
of the sun during the day and the stars and moons at night. They even noted
the colour of the seawater around them, and the types of seaweed within it.
However, that afternoon Terrel watched as they prepared to take a completely
different set of measurements. He didn't like to interfere but he was
intrigued, so he sought out Kahl.
'What are they doing?'
'We're coming into shallower water now,' the sailor told him. 'The rope
they're preparing is knotted every four paces, so that when a weight is tied
to the end and we lower it over the side, we can tell exactly how deep the
water is. That'll give the captain a better idea of where we've got to.
Sometimes they spread tallow on the base of the weight. That way, when it
touches the sea bed, some bits get embedded, and when we draw it up again,
Ostan can tell more about where we are, depending on whether it's sand or
pebbles or mud.'
'Ingenious,' Terrel said, impressed.
'It's called fishing for treasure,' Kahl added. 'To my knowledge no one's ever
come up with any gold, but
sometimes — especially if you're lost — information can be just as valuable.'
From his own experiences, Terrel knew that to be true.
'I hear we're going to Whale Ness after all,' Kahl said, as they watched the
rope being carefully lowered over the side of the ship.
'Yes. Do you know why Ostan changed his mind?'
'That's not for me to say. But I can tell you he spent some time talking with
Kjolur last night.'
'Kjolur told me his word wouldn't carry much weight.'
'No,' Kahl agreed. 'But his gold might.'
That evening, Terrel found himself becoming increasingly restless. Kahl had
had no proof of his theory. The idea, that money might have changed hands was