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

   Cerryl hadn't had to use chaos fire on any person yet in his
gate-guard duties, but he'd turned two wagons carrying contraband-one had
iron blades hidden under the wagon bed-into ashes and sent the teamster
and his assistant to the road crew, where they'd spend the rest of their
lives helping push the Great White Highway through the Westhorns.
   The young mage shrugged. He doubted that either man had been the one
who had planned the smuggling-or would have benefited much-but he'd seen
Fenard and Jellico and grown up in Hrisbarg in the shadow of the
played-out mines. He'd been a mill boy, a scrivener's apprentice, and a
student mage under the overmage Jeslek. All those experiences had made
one thing clear. Strict as the rules of the Guild were, harsh as the
punishments could be, and sometimes as unfair as they had been, from what
he'd seen the alternatives were worse.
   After stamping his white boots again, Cerryl walked across the short
porch, four steps, and turned back, hoping that keeping moving would keep
him warmer. Sometimes, it did. Most times, it didn't.
   He wanted to yawn. He'd thought sewer duty had been tiring, but it
hadn't been half so tiring as being a gate guard. At least, in cleaning
sewers he'd been able to perfect his control of chaos fire. As a gate
mage, mostly he just watched from the tiny rampart on top of the
guardhouse just out from the north gate. Also, the sewers were warmer in
winter and cooler in summer. The sewers did stink, he reminded himself,
sometimes a great deal.
   "Ser?"
   Cerryl glanced down.
   Diborl looked up at the young mage. "We've got two here need
medallions-a cart and a hauler's wagon."
   "I'm coming down." Cerryl walked to the back of the porch area, where
he descended the tiny and narrow circular stone staircase. He came out at
the back of the guardroom. From there he entered the medallion room,
where a wiry farmer with thinning brown hair stood. Behind him was a
hauler in faded gray trousers and shirt.
   The farmer had just handed his five coppers across the battered wooden
counter to the medallion guard. Behind him, the hauler held a leather
pouch, a pouch that could have held anywhere from several silvers to
several golds, depending on the trade and the size of the wagon. That
didn't include actual tariffs, either.
   "Ser," said the guard to the farmer, "Vykay, there"-he pointed to
another guard who held a drill, a hammer, and a pouch that Cerryl knew
contained soft copper rivets-"he and the mage will attach the medallion."
   "Just so as I can get going."
   "It won't take but a moment," Cerryl assured the man, who looked to be
close to the age of Tellis, the scrivener with whom Cerryl had
apprenticed before the Guild had found him and made him a student mage.
   The cart stood at the back of the guardhouse, a brown mule between the
traces. The mule looked at Cerryl, and Cerryl looked back, then at the
baskets of potatoes in the rear.
   "Medallion should go on the sideboard around here." Vykay positioned
the brass plate a handspan below the bottom of the driver's seat. "That
be all right?"