"L. E. Modesitt - Recluce 06 - The White Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

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THE White Order
by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.
Copyright © 1998
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Edited by David G. Hartwell
Endpaper map by Laszlo Kubinyi
Interior maps by Ellisa Mitchell
A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010
Tor® Books on the World Wide Web: http://www.tor.com


From inner cover flap:
The White Order is the story of Cerryl, a boy orphaned when the powerful white mages killed his
father to protect their control of the world's magic. Cerryl, raised by his aunt and uncle, is a
curious boy, attracted to mirrors and books, though he is unable to read. When he is old enough,
Cerryl is apprenticed to the local miller. The miller's daughter teaches Cerryl to read his
father's books, and it seems that the talent for magic has been passed from father to son. When
Cerryl witnesses a white mage destroy a renegade magician, the miller realizes the boy will not be
safe there, so Cerryl must be sent to the city of Fairhaven to find his destiny.
Thus Modesitt takes one of the most enduring and mythic themes in fantasy and makes it his own.
The White Order is a powerful new addition to the Recluce saga, guaranteed to add many new readers
to Modesitt's devoted following.


For and to my soprano sorceress


I

The brown-haired child clung to the long shadow cast by the ancient house as he edged toward the
south end of the tailings pile. His eyes led him toward the barely shimmering oblong of light
reflected from somewhere in the tailings against the rough planks of the doorless shed, a shed
that had once held mining tools. His bare feet made no sound as he slipped from the shade into the
late afternoon sunlight and over the rocky ground to the gray and reddish brown heap of stone and
slag.
After he went to one knee, his fingers brushed away the thin coating of dust that had half-
concealed the fragment of mirror, perhaps half the size of his palm. He teased it out of the dirt
and laid it flat on half of a broken yellow brick. He turned his head toward the house, but the
door was closed and the front stoop vacant. He glanced past the next closest tailings pile to the
south, checking the other piles of earth and stone and slag, and the abandoned mineheads, but the
only movement was that of scattered summer-browned grass waving in the hot afternoon breeze.
A lizard scuttled from where he had lifted the broken brick. The boy tensed until he saw the
large brown stripe down its tan back. Then he smiled, watching as the lizard vanished behind a
fist-sized chunk of slag. His eyes went back to the lizard hole, but no other lizards emerged.
The hot wind ruffled his clean but armless and ragged shirt as he squatted on the lower slope
of the waste pile and gazed intently at the fragment of mirror. His pale gray eyes narrowed. The
oblong of light cast against the toolshed winked out. Silver mists swirled across the glass,