"Hambly,.Barbara.-.Darwath.2.-.Walls.Of.Air.e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

Ingold rested a hand gently on her shoulder. "I think you had better go arm."
Her eyes dark in the wan bluish witchlight, Minalde watched Rudy dress. "What's
wrong?" she whispered.
"I don't know." His voice was low, so as not to wake the royal infant who slept
in his gilded cradle in the shadows on the opposite wall. "But I think I'd
better be getting back." After a month in this world, the alien clothing was
more or less familiar to him, and he no longer felt self-conscious in the
homespun breeches and full-sleeved shirt, tunic, knee-length boots, and gaily
embroidered surcoat he'd scrounged off a dead nobleman after the great massacre
by the Dark Ones at Karst. But he still mourned the simplicity of jeans and a
T-shirt. He buckled on his sword and leaned across the tumble of variegated
silks to kiss the girl who watched him so silently. "Will you be at the gate in
the morning to see us off?"
His hands framed her face. She caught his wrists, as if to hold him to her for a
few minutes longer. "No," she said quietly. "I can't, Rudy. It's a long way to
Quo and a dangerous road. Who knows if you'll even find the Hidden City or the
Archmage, once you reach the end?" Her blue eyes shimmered suddenly in the pale
phosphorescence of the witchlight. "I never could stand good-bys."
"Hey!" Rudy leaned over her again, his hands gripping her neck and shoulders,
the dark hair spilling heavily down over his fingers as he drew her mouth to
his. "Hey, Ingold's gonna be with me. We'll be okay. I can't imagine anyone or
anything crazy enough to take on that old geezer. It won't be goodby."
She smiled crookedly up at him. "Then there's no point in making much of it, is
there?" Their lips met again, gently this time, the loose strands of her hair
tickling his face. "Go with God, Rudy, though the Bishop would die in her tracks
if she heard me say that to a wizard."
Through their next kiss Rudy mumbled something about the Bishop. "Which probably
wouldn't do her any harm," he added as their mouths parted. He reached up
tenderly and brushed the tear from her cheek. In all his twenty-five years, he
couldn't remember anyone, man or woman, who had ever been concerned about what
he was going to do. Why did it have to be a girl in another universe? he
wondered. Why did it have to be a Queen? Another tear stole down her cheek, so
he whispered, "Hey, you look after Pugsley while I'm gone." His way of referring
to Prince Tir, the last heir of the House of Dare, made her laugh in spite of
herself.
"All right." She smiled shakily.
"We'll find the Archmage and his Council," Rudy whispered encouragingly. "See if
we don't." He kissed her once more quickly and turned and fled, the bluish
feather of light dying behind him.
In darkness he hurried through the mazes of the Royal Sector, misery in his
heart.
She was afraid for him, and more than that, he was all she had—he and her baby
son. In the past month she had lost the husband she had worshipped, the Realm
she had ruled, and the world she had grown up in. Yet she had never said, "Don't
go."
And what's more, you selfish bastard, he cursed himself, it never crossed your
mind not to go.
She had never questioned that his need to be a wizard took precedence over his
love for her. Wretched as the truth made him, he understood it for what it was;
he was first and foremost a wizard. Given a choice of what to do with the