"Julian May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

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It was a peculiar time. For three years, in a manner unprecedented, the volcanos of Tarn had been in a state of intermittent eruption, filling the Boreal skies with a haze of dark ash
that folklore named the Wolf’s Breath. The phenomenon had previously been very rare and of brief duration, albeit much dreaded in Didion, where prevailing winds carried the ash-
clouds eastward, casting a pall over the land that invariably resulted in a failed harvest.

A Wolf’s Breath persisting for three years in a row was a signal calamity, and Didion was finally pushed to the brink of famine. The mighty Sealords of Tarn also faced ruin, since a
great proportion of their food was imported at high prices, and they had been forced to abandon most of their goldmining operations until the poisonous exhalations of the eruptions
should cease. Even fertile Cathra produced scarcely two-thirds of its usual abundant crop of grain. This was sufficient to feed its own people, but left a diminished surplus available
for trade. Only sorcery-ridden Moss, being foggy and poverty-stricken most of the time anyhow, seemed to suffer not a whit from the Wolf’s Breath.

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Julian, May - Boreal Moon 01 - Conqueror's Moon

Which was suspicious on the face of it…

Many blamed Conjure-King Linndal of Moss for the misfortune, saying that he was taking vengeance on King Achardus of Didion for having refused to consider Linndal’s daughter
Ullanoth as a fit bride for his second son. Others said that the Tarnians themselves had triggered the dire event by grubbing too much gold from the bowels of their mountains, so that
hellfire seeped up to fill the empty space and spewed forth sky-darkening smoke. The Brothers of Zeth in Cathra, being more learned in science and wishing to instill hope,
maintained that the eruptions were a natural distemper of the earth and would surely cease once the subterranean integrants regained their equilibrium.

But the eruptions did not cease.

As catastrophe overwhelmed his country, Achardus of Didion squandered his assets in a desperate attempt to buy food and ward off insurrection among his starving subjects.
Eventually, the market for the nation’s raw timber, furs, and tin was glutted. Prompted (as was thought then) by conniving mainland shipbrokers, Didion began building vessels of
war. These found an all-too-ready market on the Continent, where the powerful nations of Stippen, Foraile, and Andradh nursed expansionist ambitions.

In Cathra, King Olmigon Wincantor had taken to his bed with the ailment that would ultimately end his life. His Privy Council, riven by factional disputes, was at first unwilling to
take effective action, even when Prince Conrig, the able heir to the throne, forcefully pointed out the potential dangers in the situation. What if the Wolf’s Breath blew for a fourth
year—or even a fifth? Starving refugees from Didion were already attempting to cross the passes into Cathra. If numbers of them broke through, the rapacious Continental nations,
who had long coveted High Blenholme’s natural riches, would probably take advantage of the resulting chaos and launch an attack on the island.

In order to forestall this peril, Prince Heritor Conrig presented his father and the Council with an ingenious plan, which they finally accepted. That the immediate consequences
proved disastrous was not the prince’s fault; he was overruled by his conservative elders in the scheme’s implementation. In the wake of the debacle, he conceived yet another bold
stratagem. But this time he determined to carry it out himself.




one
Conrig Wincantor, Prince Heritor of Cathra, Earl of Brent, and Lord Constable of the Realm, ate without much of an appetite, picking at the cold roast beef, eel pie, and fine white
wastelbread. He had no stomach at all for the cress salad with scallions or the dessert of pears seethed in cranberry cordial. The prince’s only dining companion was his older brother
Vra-Stergos, newly ordained Doctor Arcanorum in the Mystic Order of the Brothers of Zeth. No pages served them. They had come to Castle Vanguard on a secret mission, and their
presence was unknown to the ordinary inhabitants of the northern fortress.

Their meal had been set out in a small chamber lit only by a glazed loophole, adjacent to the castle solar where the council of war was to take place. Neither of them said much, but
the prince could not help but notice how Stergos’s eyes lost their focus from time to time, and how he would sometimes hold his head motionless as though listening, even though
this arras-hung cubby where they supped was as quiet as winter midnight on Raven Moor.