"Joel Rosenberg - Hidden Ways 1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

change.

"Not just the Stone Duke," the Fire Duke said, "but the Wind and the Ice, as well. And if the truth be known—"

As it is, in the long run, Rodic thought.

"—I'm less than fond of the Sky," he murmured. He smiled thinly, as though daring Rodic to acknowledge the treason.

"Then, my Duke," Rodic said, "by all means, complain endlessly about it. Tell me more, please, about how neither you nor any
other of the Houses dare move too openly, too boldly against each other, for fear of bringing the wrath of the remaining ones down
against the aggressor."

As though that was the only worry. Off to the east of the Dominion, Vandescard lay, perhaps waiting, perhaps not. One could
never tell about humans who styled themselves the proper descendants of the Vanir. And one could never tell about the Old Ones
in the North, or the younger, more vigorous cultures in the South.

We live, huddled among the bones of giants, Rodic decided, like a bunch of aging men, waiting to become old enough to lay down
their tools and die gracefully.

And, yet, compared to the youngest of the Old Ones, the Dominion was still young and fresh.

There had once been more than a dozen Houses, and not merely the five remaining, inhabiting the ancient keeps of Falias, Gorias,
Finias, and Murias, and the one so old it was known only as the Old Keep. One House had become powerful enough to take the
Old Keep, and the title of the House of the Sky; only four others survived.

The rest were long gone, conquered and subsumed like the House of Trees, shattered and destroyed like the House Without A
Name.

"Even the Sky," the Fire Duke said.

"If the Sky bothers you so badly, summon your son and heir back, and let him lead your soldiers against it."

As though that could happen. Venidir del Anegir and his Lady Mother were more or less a permanent fixture in the Old Keep,
which apparently suited both of them and the Fire Duke well. Back when his elder brother died, even before he succeeded his
father, His Warmth had seemed to have little use for his wife and his heir, and had long had them live as his emissaries to the Sky,
returning to Falias but rarely.

It might bode well for the House of Flame to have its next duke so well connected with the Sky, or it might not; it was possible that
too close a connection could trigger a revolt by the other three houses, fearful that they would be shattered or subsumed, too.

"You speak perhaps a trifle boldly," the Fire Duke said.

"I speak, perhaps, a trifle truthfully." Wondering if he had gone too far, Rodic sipped at a cold spun-glass flute of icy Prime
Ingarian autumn wine. The berries, grown high on the surprisingly cool slopes of Flame Ingaria, were picked, shriveled, just before
the first frost, and only the first pressing went into the Prime. After fifty years in a hidden wine cellar that could have been next to
the duke's quarters or leagues of corridors away, the wine was sweet as wildflower honey, but with a rich berry taste that lingered
on the tongue.

When the fat duke started fighting for control of his expression, Rodic knew that he had won, he had survived, yet again. The Art
was not only his way of life, it was the key to life: someone as devious as the Fire Duke would not deal so straightforwardly with