"Tamora Pierce - Circle Opens 4 - Shatterglass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

Labrykas Square fountain like, like so much rubbish!”

“It will take a powerful cleansing to purify the fountain again,” a woman replied soberly. “Surely the All-
Seeing God will take offence against the district for the defilement—”

“The district? I think not!” retorted the first speaker. “It’s obviously the work of some shenos who
respects nothing and no one. The All-Seeing knows that no Tharian would commit so foul an act.”

“The Keepers of the Public Good will put a stop to it,” the woman said with the firmness of complete
belief. “They have —”

The breeze had not caught the rest of the discussion. Tris shook her head as she walked on. Someone is
murdered, and all these people care about is the purity of Assembly Square? she thought, baffled. That’s
pretty heartless.

She also wasn’t inclined to believe these Keepers would be able to do much about the killing. How
effective could they be? They were elected to serve a three-year term each by the Assembly, a body of the
oldest citizens and the wealthiest landholders. They would not have the experience or cunning of a proper
ruler who’d been raised for the position, like Duke Vedris of Emelan, Capchen’s king and queen, or
Empress Berenene of Namorn. She was amazed that the Tharians got anything done, if their entire
political system was run by a mob. She had seen at home how much a governing council could quibble,
fuss, debate, argue and fight, with nothing to show for it – and Winding Circle’s governing council was
only twenty people. She’d heard there were over three hundred in the Assembly.

“It’s different when one man or woman is responsible for a country,” she told Little Bear as they

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passed through Labrykas Square. The fountain, which she had seen on her arrival in the city, was
shrouded in a kind of white, roofless tent. “They have to jump on this kind of nonsense right away, or
everyone knows they’re to blame. Here, all the rulers have to do is point to the other Keeper, or someone
from the Assembly, and say they’re supposed to be in charge of that.” Disgusted, Tris shook her head
and thrust all such dissatisfactions from her mind. She was here to learn, not to let the strange ways in
which other people governed themselves get on her nerves.

At last she reached the part of the Street of Glass that she meant to explore first, the part that stretched
between Labrykas Square and the pleasure district known as Khapik. She took a moment to look around
using her magical vision. One thing she would say in favour of the Tharians, they looked after the magic
that was used in public places. She saw very few tag-ends of old charms and spells gleaming silver on
walls or around windows and doors. Spells there were in plenty, the usual creations for protection, health
and prosperity that anyone who could afford it paid to have laid on their homes and businesses. The thing
that Tris admired was that local mages either got rid of what remained of older spells, or wrote the same
kind of spell in afresh, so that the magic in them shone in bright silver layers, an indication that
differences in the spells did not conflict and cause the magic to go astray.

Tris walked idly up the street, admiring the lace-like patterns of spells on the shop walls, tracing a curve
here, a letter there, with her finger. She knew most by heart, but this Tharian way of copying them over
and over seemed to extend their power, even if the mage who added the most recent layer wasn’t