"Recluce - 09 - Colors Of Chaos" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

   "Oh?" Leyladin arched her eyebrows. "From your peeking through the
glass? I'll wager you didn't tell Sterol about that."
   "I did," Cerryl confessed. "Except I didn't tell him who I looked at.
You felt me. You told me that, remember? You were so strong that I
stopped looking. I never dared try again."
   "You were saying ..." she said gently.
   "Oh ..." He shrugged. "I saw the silks and hangings. I thought you
were the daughter of a wealthy merchant-but not so high as a lady." He
grinned. "A lady and a mage and a healer. Far above this lowly junior
mage."
   "Stop it." The healer grimaced. "You're already more powerful than I
am or will ever be. Let's see Father."
   Cerryl followed her through the foyer arch into the main entry hall.
The floors were blue-green marble squares, polished so smooth that the
four bronze wall lamps and their sconces shed light from both the wall
and the floor. The air smelled of trilia and roses-together with another
scent, a lighter one. The walls, even the inside walls, were smoothed
granite block to waist-level and white plaster above.
   Green silks hung from the archway through which Leyladin led Cerryl
into a long sitting room, one with two settees upholstered in green
velvet and two matching and upholstered wooden armchairs. All were
arranged around a long and low table of polished and inlaid woods. The
table inlays had been designed to portray the image of a ship under full
sail.
   Cerryl paused as he studied the table and then the pair of matched
cabinets against the wall, cabinets that almost framed the single picture
in a silvered frame on the middle of the inside wall. The image was that
of a smiling, narrow-faced woman with generous lips and long wavy blonde
tresses. She wore a green vest embroidered in gold thread over a loose
white silk shirt. The blue eyes seemed to follow Cerryl. He looked at
Leyladin. "Your mother?"
   She nodded. "That was her favorite outfit, and it's how I remember
her."
   The end of the sitting room held a hearth, with a brass screen before
it. In the wall to the left of the hearth was an archway. Leyladin led
Cerryl through the arch and then through a door to the right, ignoring
the archway on the left. The study was but ten cubits on a side, perhaps
five long paces, and three of the walls were paneled in dark-stained red
oak. The forth and inside wall contained only shelves, though, but a
third held scattered displays of books, the remainder holding decorative
items-malachite vases, a curved silver pitcher, a narrow and ancient
blade.
   A heavy man rose from the desk in the corner, angled so that the heat
from coals in the hearth bathed him where he had been sitting. The top of
his head was bald and shining, and on each side of his head blond hair
half-covered his ears. A wide smile burst from his clean-shaven face, and
green eyes, lighter than those of his daughter, smiled with his mouth.
   "Father, this is Cerryl. Cerryl, this is my father, Layel."
   "So ... you're one of the young mages?" Layel stepped around the
polished dark wood of the desk and offered a polite head bow.