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

FarSeers were aware that this was the human condition and simply accepted them. The mortals had been
granted free will, and with that great gift came the privilege to abuse themselves and others; the point was
to see to it that the bright and goodly things outnumbered the dark and dismal.

And reigning over all of this was the red-haired queen, whose golden eyes were alight with curiosity and
intelligence, and who strove to mold her subjects into a unified nation without making all alike.
Even though the vision was unreal, an ephemeral thing, there came right through the lens a taste and smell
of sweetness of new thoughts, new beauty, vibrant excitement. And in this Vision only, behind the queen,
unmistakably, stood the Sidhe lord, Denoriel Siencyn Macreth Silverhair, and his twin sister, Aleneil
Arwyddion Ysfael Silverhair.

Aleneil, the youngest of the FarSeers, sighed at seeing her image in the lens. "I thought, perhaps, the
mortal world would proceed without our help. I do not know if Denoriel . . ." Her voice faltered, for her
sibling had been sorely injured in protecting the red-haired babe who would be, if she lived, the queen of
the joyous vision. She interlaced the long fingers of her supple hands together, to keep them from
trembling. "It is possible that Denoriel will not be able. The channels through which his powers flow were
burned and Mwynwen does not yet know whether they will heal or how they will heal."

"He must be able," Morwen, the next youngest of the FarSeers said, firmly, as if her own will could
impose wellness upon Denoriel. "You saw what would come if you were not in the Vision. Dullness and
misery we will survive. Other times like that have come and gone. But think what will follow if what is in
the dark-haired queen's womb is born. Will Logres survive? Will Avalon?"

"Patience. Balance." The FarSeer with hair the color of old gold and a gown in the style of Periclean
Athens held up a hand. "Eirianell has already requested an audience. Perhaps the High King has
knowledge we do not." She lifted her hand, and the others rose with her, to fall in behind her. She led the
way with head held high, and every sign of serenity as they bent their path to the High King's palace.

Aleneil wished that she had such serenity—then wondered if it really was composure on the part of their
leader, or only a counterfeit. Aleneil was very young among the Sidhe, to them barely adult; the leader of
the FarSeers was as ancient in mortal years as the style of gown she favored. She had thus had many
years to cultivate a mask of calm repose.

There was no sign of what the FarSeers had read in their lens as they walked beneath the
star-bespangled false-sky, between two rows of towering linden trees, covered with silver-green leaves
and golden flowers. The path beneath them was of soft and springy moss, interrupted only by artistically
placed stones and clumps of violets and bluebells. Ahead of them stood a palace of lacey marble and
alabaster that had changed little over the passing of the years. Avalon looked as it had for countless
centuries, dreaming in an endless, peace-filled blue twilight, as nightingales sang and crickets chirruped.

And unless the High King found some new wisdom, if Denoriel could not take up the task of guarding
and guiding the young Princess Elizabeth Tudor, it all might end in fear and flame.

If Oberon had more knowledge than his FarSeers, he gave no sign of it. He greeted the ladies of the
Visions not in his throne room where the entire Bright Court might listen to them, but in a private
chamber. However, this was no intimate chamber where a king might shed his dignity and speak as an
ordinary being with intimates, or even play for a time. They gathered in a room where gracefully arched
openings in all four walls framed only blank alabaster panels. There were no places save the single door
into it where this chamber was open to the palace or the grounds. This was where a king made
arrangements and gave judgments he had no desire for his entire court to know.