"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 01 - The Black Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

visitor?"
"Both," Skan replied. "If it isss sssomeone who cannot bearrr to watch a gryphon eat, let him come
back laterrr. And if it iss sssomeone I do not want to sssee, he will be the dinner."
He would not be eating little chunks of meat tonight; no, Cinnabar and Tamsin knew gryphons, and
unless that idiot cook mistakenly countermanded their orders, there would be a nice fat haunch of
something fresh-killed and bloody, something Skan could tear into and take out some of his frustrations
on. Maybe even half a deer or ox—he was quite hungry enough to eat either.
A silver-brocaded hertasi signaled from beside the canvas doorway, and the other hertasi
disappeared as if they had evaporated. A moment later, the tent flap was pushed aside, to reveal a
beloved and unique personage.
"I should think I can bear to watch a gryphon eat," said Urtho, the Mage of Silence.
He swept into the room with a single step; he said nothing more, but projected a soothing presence
into the damp, warm room. It was impossible to tell Urtho's real age; he could be sixty or six hundred.
For as long as Skan had known him, Urtho had looked the same, an eternal image of genius. Tall and
thin, storklike, with a waist-length fall of curly silver-gray hair, huge gray eyes, a nose as prominent as
Lady Cinnabar's and a lantern jaw kept scrupulously clean-shaven, he did not look like the finest of
Adept-class mages. He did not look like any kind of mage. He looked more like a scribe, or perhaps a
silversmith or retired acrobat.
Skan thought there might be Kaled'a'in blood in Urtho's veins. That might well be true, given his
nose and the long-standing association he had with them. But if that were true, no one had ever
confirmed it in Skan's hearing.
Urtho held the flap open for two hertasi bringing in the forequarters of a deer; both front legs,
shoulders, and the chest; hide and all. No head, though, but perhaps that was a bit much to ask. Humans
were so queasy when it came to delivering a gryphon's dinner with head intact, never mind that the head
was delicious. Well, humans were queasy about a great many silly things. Skan seized the prize in his
foreclaws as soon as the hertasi had laid it in front of him, and tore off a mouthful of meat and hide before
acknowledging the commander of one of the two largest armies that Velgarth had ever seen.
He tossed his head and swallowed the bite whole. Like the raptors the Kaled'a'in bred, he needed
the hair and stringy hide to clean his crop. "Join me for dinner?" he offered.
Urtho laughed. "Is that like a falcon offering to meet a mouse for lunch?" Tamsin and Cinnabar both
bowed respectfully and made a somewhat hasty exit. Urtho's power tended to overawe people who
didn't know him well. He nodded to them both, took one of the two seats the Healers had left, and
settled himself down onto it.
Skandranon tore off another mouthful of meat; it tasted wonderful, rich and salt-sweet. He
swallowed, feeling the striations of the blood-slick muscles slither against his throat, down into his crop.
He flicked an ear and cocked his head at his leader. Their gazes met, and tales sped between them in the
flicker of their eyes.
"Well, old man, I sssurvived afterrr all. I hope you have it."
Urtho nodded casually. "So you did. And you were right, when you insisted you were the one to go.
You did very well, Skan, and yes, I have it. Even though you tried to swallow it whole."
"I wasss the only one ssstupid enough to trrry, you mean," Skan replied, trying not to preen with
pride. He scissored another bite out of his meal.
"I seem to recall that you not only volunteered, you insisted." Urtho made it a statement and a bit of
a challenge. Skan simply grunted.
"Perhapsss," he suggested teasingly after a moment, "your memorrry isss faulty."
Somewhat to his surprise, Urtho sighed. "It is," he said wearily. "I've been forgetting a great deal
lately. Kelethen has been most impatient with me."
"You have much to rrrememberrr," Skan pointed out quickly. "Kelethen isss as fusssy as any other
herrrtasssi. You ssshould tell him that if he isss upssset, he can jussst keep an appointment calendar, asss
if you werrre a kessstra'cherrrn."