"Pierce, Tamora - The Circle Opens 03 - Cold Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

Daja's throat went tight with emotion. There was no glimmer of magic to this fellow who had nearly been buried in the stable. With only a wet blanket for protection he had plunged into flames to save those boys. He'd come close to dying: one breath more and that burning roof would have dropped on his head.

This was a true hero, a non-mage who saved lives because he had to, not because he could protect himself with magic. He was a tall man in his early thirties, coatless; his wool shirt was covered in soot marks and scorches. His russet wool trousers were also fire-marked. He appeared to have forgotten his wriggling burdens as he stared at Daja and her fire seed with deep blue eyes.

The firefighters tugged on the boys. Recalled to himself, the tall man released them and grimaced. He shook his left hand: it was crimson and blistered with a serious burn. The boys were coughing, the result of their exposure to smoke. Their rescuer eyed them with a frown as a firefighter wrapped linen around his burned hand. "Which of you set it?" he demanded.

A woman in a maid's cap and white apron was offering the boys a ladle of water to drink. She dropped the ladle at the blue-eyed man's words. "Set?" she cried.

"His fault, Mama," one croaked, pointing to the other. "He spilt the lamp."

"You said we could play up there!" cried his companion, before a series of coughs left him wheezing.

The maid grabbed each lad by an ear and towed them into the main house. Daja shook her head over the folly of the young and glanced at the burning stable. The firefighters had given up. They simply kept back and watched for more flying debris. They also edged away from Daja, their eyes on the white-hot fire globe in her hand.

"If you don't want people to be nervous with you, don't do things that make them nervous," Frostpine had advised after they'd been on the road a week. "Or do things they won't notice. You've been spoiled, living at Winding Circle. There everyone's used to magic. Outside, making things act differently than normal turns people jumpy."

Daja didn't like to make people jumpy. She covered her fireball with one hand.

"How did you manage that?" The boys' rescuer walked over to Daja, cradling his wrapped left hand. "You called it. Viynain"-Namornese for "a male mage"-"Godsforge had that trick, except in ribbons, not balls." He thrust his right hand at Daja. "Bennat Ladradun," he said. Even covered with soot and scorch-marks he was a comfortable-looking man, with the soft, big body of a well-broken-in armchair. His broad cheeks were each punctuated with a mole, one high, one low. His nose was fleshy and pointed; his flyaway curls were reddish brown and losing ground on top of his head. Someone came up with a dry blanket to wrap around him: his clothes were soaked by the blanket he'd worn into the stable.

Daja had to uncover her fireball to shake his hand. "Daja Kisubo," she replied. "You were brave to go in there."

"No, I just didn't think," Bennat replied absently. "If I had, I'd have known better. The roof was about to go." He turned her offered hand palm up and closed his fingers around it. "Not even hot," he remarked. "A little warm, that's all." He let Daja go. "You're one of the smith-mages, am I right? The pair staying with Kol and Matazi?"

Daja nodded. "The Bancanors' cook says you teach Kugisko to fight fires."

Bennat smiled, his thin mouth tucked into ironic corners. "I teach parts of Kugisko, bit by bit, kicking and screaming," he replied as he inspected the fireball. He held his hand over it and snatched it back. "Well, that's hot, at least. Viynain Godsforge wore spelled gloves so he wouldn't get burned when he worked with flame. Why doesn't the fire bother you?"

"It's magic," she told him quietly. "One of the first things we learn."

He shook his head. "My whole year with Godsforge, only two of our mages learned to hold fire, and they couldn't manage something that hot. What are you going to do with it?"

Daja shrugged and tossed it back to the stable. It vanished in the flames. "Did the blanket really help in there?" she wanted to know.

The man wandered over to a barrel set beside the far wall and sat on it. Daja followed him. "The trick's in guessing how long you have before the fire sucks the damp out," he explained. "I hoped it was wet enough that I could reach the loft, grab our fireflies, and get out. It helped knowing where they were-we saw them, in the window over the door. If I'd had to search, I might be a little charred now." Looking at the burning stable, he shook his head. "I told the Moykeps six months ago they ought to pull this thing down. It was an accident waiting to happen."

"This whole city's an accident waiting to happen," Daja said with feeling. "All these wooden houses-it's mad-brained, that's what."

Bennat looked at her and smiled. "That's right-you're from the south. Somebody told me you were. Wood's cheap in this part of the country-we've got more forests than we know what to do with. And families moving into the city, they want something that reminds them of home."

"Wood," Daja said, shaking her head in disgust.

"You get used to it," Bennat said. "There's real craftsmanship in the carvings on the roofs and doors and porches. And the builders use different kinds of log, to contrast colors and textures in the wood."

"Here I thought they just built these places any old way," Daja admitted. "It never occurred to me they used different woods on purpose." She realized she was being rude. "I'm sorry. It's not my place to criticize your home."

Bennat chuckled, then began to cough. One of the women firefighters came to offer him a flask. Bennat took it and drank, coughing between sips. At last the coughs stilled. He returned the flask. "Thanks," he told the woman after he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Looking at Daja he asked, "So do you fight fires?"

Daja smiled crookedly. She wasn't sure that he would term sucking a forest fire through her body to douse it in a glacier as firefighting. "Mostly I just handle it in the forge," she replied. "I know a trick or two-there's always the risk of little fires starting in forges or inns-but I almost never use them."