"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

court. And that would be a fine place for Blade and Tadrith to be posted—and perhaps even Keeth.
Unless, of course, Amberdrake managed to get himself appointed as Ambassador there—or
Winterhart did—
No. No, that couldn't possibly happen, she reassured herself hastily. Father's needed too much
here. Mother wouldn't go without him, not after the mess that almost happened the last time. And
he knows that there's no one here that could replace him.
Of course he could always train someone as his replacement....
Oh, why am I making up these stupid scenarios when I don't even know where I'm going after
this, or whether Ikala and I would ever be more than close friends, or even if Judeth would
consider Tad and me for posts with the Embassy! She realized that she was making up trouble for
herself out of nebulous plans that weren't even a possibility yet!
Things must be going too well if I'm planning for opposition that doesn't exist and problems
that would take a thousand variables to come up!
Just about then, Tad spoke to her. "I can't think of anything else," he said. "What about you?"
"I haven't had any great inspirations for the supply list, but then I haven't been really thinking about
it," she confessed, and frowned at the scrawled document in her hands. "I'll tell you what; let's go talk to
Judeth or Aubri, and see if either of them have any suggestions."
Tad clicked his beak thoughtfully. "Is that wise?" he asked. "Will it look as if we aren't capable of
thinking for ourselves?"
"It will look as if we are not too full of ourselves to accept advice from those older and wiser than
us, and if we tell them that, they'll adore us for it," she responded, and got to her feet, stamping a little to
ease a bit of numbness. "Come on, bird. Let's go show the old dogs that the puppies aren't totally idiots."
"Not totally," Tadrith muttered, although he did get to his feet as well. "Only mostly."




Two
"Outpost Five, heh?" Aubri stretched both his forelegs, one at a time, regarding the blunted, ebony
talons on the end of each claw with a jaundiced eye. Wind rattled the wooden wind chimes harmoniously
in the open window behind him, and Tad watched golden dust motes dance in the beam of clear sunlight
lancing down to puddle on the floor beside the old gryphon. "Let me see if I remember anything about
Outpost Five."
Tad sighed as Aubri went through the whole of his dry, impish, "absentminded" routine, first
scratching his rusty-brown headfeathers meditatively (which made more dustmotes dance into the light),
then staring up at the ceiling of the dwelling he shared with Judeth. His head moved again after a long
moment, and Tad hoped he was finally going to say something. But no—he looked down at the shining
terrazzo floor, inlaid in a geometric pattern of cream and brown that to all outward appearances
fascinated him. That is, he seemed to be staring at those places; like any raptor, a gryphon's peripheral
vision was as good as his straight-on sight, and Tad knew very well that Aubri was watching
them—well—like a hawk.
"Outpost Five," the elder gryphon muttered, shaking his head so that the fragments of feather-sheath
dislodged by his earlier scratch flew in all directions. A single headfeather, striped in brown and cream
and as large as a human's palm, drifted down to lie in the pool of sunlight beside him. Its edges were
outlined in light, and the white fluff at the base glowed with a nimbus of reflected sunshine. "Outpost
Five... now why does that sound familiar?"
This could go on for some time if Tad didn't put a stop to it. He fixed Aubri with a look that said
wordlessly, I know just what you're doing and I'm not falling for it. In tones of deepest respect, he
told his superior, "You and Commander Judeth took Outpost Five three years ago, sir, when we first
took responsibility for it from the Haighlei. You said the tour of duty was a vacation from trainees who