"Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis - Ill Met by Moonlight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

A little later, he stuck out his tongue to taste a cloud that had formed directly in front of him—and that
was sweet, decidedly sweet. Pasgen smiled and began to draw into himself some of the energy Rhoslyn
might have used to create a construct. By the time he came to the Gate he had sensed at about the
middle of this Unformed land, he had restored all the power he had used to create the gnome's amulet
and build his Gate.

The Gate in the Unformed land took him to another busy hold, the next to a dead elfhame. Pasgen did
not linger nor leave the Gate. He turned his back on the crumbling hall and averted his eyes from the
encroaching "garden" of viciously snapping "plants" and putrescent flowers. Fortunately, this Gate had
three unused settings. Quickly, he willed a new terminus in another Unformed domain where he built
another Gate that, at long last, deposited him at the edge of Rhoslyn's holding.

As always he sighed, mingled exasperation and appreciation, because the scene before him was both
untidy and, somehow satisfying. There were no long, perfect vistas; the view was broken by little ponds
around which there were patches of trees, then meadows cropped smooth by dainty sheep. Sheep?
What were sheep doing in an Unseleighe domain? When the Dark Court wanted mutton, they engaged in
a riotous hunt on mortal flocks, left grazing injudiciously too near a Stone Circle, a Standing Stone, a
Barrow, or some other passage into Underhill. Pasgen shook his head. Not that they often did such a
thing, at least, not for the meat. Venison, boar, and pheasant were more like to grace the tables of
elvenkind. Or peacock and antelope, had anyone a taste for the exotic.

Beyond was a patch of woodland from which emerged a babbling brook following a wavering course
over stones of every size and shape. He sighed again as he invoked the minor spell that would in effect
give him seven-league boots and take him in three steps to Rhoslyn's castle. A castle . . . Again he shook
his head. It was a mortal child's dream, that place; a fairy-tale castle with pretty towers and turrets and
bright flags snapping in the nonexistent breeze.

His last step took him to the drawbridge over the moat—the shining, clear moat in which one could see
large, bright-colored fish swimming. That was new. The moat used to look like a moat in mortal lands, or
one in Unseleighe Underhill—muddy, green with algae, and clogged with razor-sharp swamp grass. It
had never held golden fish with trailing fins before. Those were Seleighe things. If Vidal saw . . . If Vidal
had a token and found Rhoslyn's domain and saw what looked too much like a Bright Court palace, he
would tear it apart and break Rhoslyn's heart.

Pasgen swallowed hard, clenched his jaw, and reminded himself that—that was then, this is now. Vidal
would do no such thing. Pasgen knew he had been close to matching Vidal's power before the disaster,
and he had spent his years in learning new magic and finding new sources of power, while Vidal had been
lying insensate, unable to learn or do anything. Vidal could do nothing to harm Rhoslyn that he, himself,
could not counter . . . unless Vidal had also spent the years in growing stronger. And how could he?
Surely the time had passed in weakness and pain.

As Pasgen set his foot on the first step of the portico that enclosed the castle door, it opened and two of
Rhoslyn's constructs barred the way, standing and watching him. He was surprised. All of Rhoslyn's
constructs knew him and all had been instructed to let him pass without hindrance.

"Who are you?" one of the constructs asked. "What do you want here?"

"I am Pasgen Peblig Rodrig Silverhair," he replied. "I am Lady Rhoslyn's brother and I have free passage
into the lady's home. Are you new-made that you do not know me?"