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

however, the omens shunned him. The silence irked; he found himself pausing to
listen, but all he ever heard was the whistle and churn of the air, and all he
saw were clouds.
When he left the north wind's road, he found himself at the edge of the forest
that marked the border of his own true country. Instead of crossing it, he
turned to his right and found a path that led into a scatter of boulders. As
he strode along, the air grew colder; suddenly the sky turned grey, and snow
fell in a scatter of flakes. It seemed that he was walking downhill; below him
in the sunset light Loc Vaedd gleamed, a green jewel set in snow. Evandar took
another step and found himself standing on Citadel's peak among the
wind-twisted trees, the highest point of Cerr Cawnen, a city of circles. In
the middle stood the rocky peak of Citadel Island. Around it stretched the
blue-green lake, fed by hot springs and thus free of ice even in the dead of
winter. At the edge of the lake on crannogs and shore stood the tangled houses
of the city proper, while around them ran a huge circle of stone walls, where
the town militia guarded shut gates. Just the summer before, Cerr Cawnen had
received a warning that the savage Horsekin tribes of the far north were on
the move, and such warnings were best attended to.
In fact, even though the town drowsed in blessed ignorance, a human being
lived among them who spied for the Horsekin. Some twenty feet below Evandar's
perch, on the east side of Citadel's peak a tunnel mouth gaped among tumbled
chunks of stone and broken masonry. It led to an ancient temple, cracked and
half-buried by an earthquake a long while previous. Evandar started to go
down, but he saw the spy - Raena, her name was - climbing up the path from the
town below. He stepped back into the trees to avoid her. Even though she was
young and pretty in a fleshy sort of way, she walked bent over like an old
woman as she struggled up the slope in her long cloak. When at the tunnel
mouth she paused to pull her dark hair back from her face, Evandar could see
the livid marks like bruises under her eyes and the pallor of her skin. Quite
possibly Shaetano was using her as wood to fuel his fires even as she thought
she was using him to serve her Horsekin masters.
Raena climbed down into the tunnel. Evandar waited a long moment, then shrank
his form and turned himself into a large black dog. His nails clicked on stone
as he followed her in. After a few yards the tunnel turned dark enough to hide
him, but ahead, through the big split in the wall that formed the entrance to
the temple room, he could see the silver glow of Raena's dweomer light. He
stopped to one side of the narrow entrance and listened, head cocked to one
side, ears pricked, long tongue lolling. At first he heard nothing but Raena's
voice, chanting in a long wail and rise; then Shaetano joined her, speaking in
the dialect of the Rhiddaer.
'What would you have of me, O my priestess?'
'To worship thee, Lord Havoc, O great one, and beg for knowledge.'
Evandar growled, then let himself expand until he could take back his normal
elven form.
'All my knowledge shall be yours,' Shaetano was saying. 'What wouldst thou
learn?'
'One riddle does make my heart burn within me. Where does she dwell now, my
Alshandra? Why will she not come to me again? Why has she deserted me, my own
true goddess, she whom I worship above all other gods?'
'Ah, this be a matter most recondite and admirable. Far far beyond what you