"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 10 - The Black Raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

shut as tight as a miser's moneybox.'
'Mayhap so,' Jahdo said. 'But never could I be a silver dagger.'
'Good,' Rhodry said, smiling. You're a lucky man, then. Although, truly,
there's one kinsman I do wonder over, just at times, and that's my brother
Salamander, as his name goes in this country.' He glanced at Dallandra. 'Did
you ever meet him? In our father's country he's called Ebany Salomanderiel
tran Devaberiel.'
'I've not,' Dallandra said. 'Although Jill told me a lot about him. He seemed
to irritate her beyond belief.'
'He takes some people that way. What's so wrong, Jahdo? You look like you've
just heard one of Evandar's riddles.'
'That be the longest name that ever I've heard in my life,' Jahdo said. 'How
do you remember such?'
'Practice.' Rhodry suddenly laughed. 'Let's get up, shall we? I'm hungry
enough to eat a wolf, pelt and all.'
'So am I,' Dallandra said. 'And speaking of Evandar, I dreamt about him last
night, and I have an errand to run.'
Since the presence of iron caused him agony, and the dun held an enormous
amount of the stuff, Evandar had taken to finding Dallandra in the Gatelands
of Sleep. They would then arrange a meeting somewhere free of the demon metal,
as he called it. In the brief afternoon, when the air felt not warm but
certainly less cold, Dalla wrapped herself in a heavy cloak and trudged
through Cengarn to the market hill. At its crest the open commons lay thick
with snow, crusted black with soot and ash from household fires. A group of
children ran and played, their young voices sharp as the wind as they dug
under the crust to find clean snow. Dallandra suppressed the urge to make a
few snowballs herself and slogged across to a small copse of trees, where in
the streaky shade of bare branches Evandar waited, wrapped in his blue cloak.
'There you are, my love,' he said.
'I am indeed,' Dallandra said. 'Now what's this urgent matter?'
'Rhodry's brother. Ebany, as his name goes in Bardek.'
'How very odd! We were just speaking of him, Rhodry and I.'
'Not odd at all. You were feeling his approach, my love, through the mists of
the future.'
'His approach?'
'That's what I've come to ask you about. You see, he's gone quite mad, and I
don't have the slightest idea of what to do about it.'
'Ah. And I suppose you think I do.'
'Don't you?'
Dalla considered for a long moment.
'Perhaps,' she said at last. 'I'm remembering some of the things Jill told me
about him. He had a great talent for dweomer, so she said. He studied it for
many years, but then he just walked away from it.'
'Will that drive someone mad?'
'Indeed it will. You can't just stop your studies once you've reached a
certain point.'
'Imph.' Evandar rubbed his chin with one hand. This world of yours, my love.
Everything here seems so - so wretchedly irrevocable.'
'Not exactly.' Dallandra paused for a laugh. 'He could have left the dweomer,
certainly, if he'd wished. But he needed to go back to his teacher and have