"Martha Wells - Ile-Rien 1 - The Element of Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells Martha)

THE ELEMENT OF FIRE Copyright © 1993 by Martha Wells
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form.
Cover art by Eric Peterson
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. IOOIO
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
ISBN: 0-812-52097-1
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-17046
First edition: July 1993
First mass market edition: July 1994


THE GRAPPLING HOOK skittered
across the rain-slick stone of the ledge before dropping to catch in the
grillwork below the third-story window.
Berham leaned back on the rope to test it. "That's it, Captain Sir. Tight as
may be," the servant whispered.
"Well done," Thomas Boniface told him. He stepped back from the wall and
looked down the alley. "Now where in hell is Dr. Braun?"
"He's coming," Gideon Townsend, Thomas's lieutenant, said as he made his way
toward them out of the heavy shadows. Reaching them he glanced up at the full
moon, stark white against the backdrop of wind-driven rain clouds, and
muttered, "Not the best night for this work." The three men stood in the muddy
alley, the dark brocades and soft wools of their doublets and breeches
blending into the grimy stones and shadow, moonlight catching only the pale
lace at the wrists or shirt collars ofThomas and his lieutenant, the glint of
an earring, or the cold metal sheen on rapiers and wheellock pistol barrels.
It was a cool night and they were surrounded by foiled counting houses and the
crumbling elegance of the decaying, once-wealthy homes of the River Quarter.
Thomas personally couldn't think of a good time to forcibly invade a foreign
sorcerer's house. "The point of it is to go and be killed where you're told,"
he said. "Is everyone in position?"
"Martin and Castero are up on the tannery roof, watching the street and the
other alley. I put Gaspard and two others at
the back of the house and left the servants to watch the horses. The rest are
across the street, waiting for the signal," Gideon answered, his blue eyes
deceptively guileless. "We're all quite ready to go and be killed where we're
told."
"Good," Thomas said. He knew Gideon was still young enough to see this as a
challenge, to care nothing for the political reality that sent them on a
mission as deadly as this with so little support. Glancing down the alley
again, he saw Dr. Braun was finally coming, creeping along the wall and
uncomfortably holding his velvet-trimmed scholar's robes out of the stinking
mud. "Well?" Thomas asked as the sorcerer came within earshot. "What have you
done?"
"I've countered the wards on the doors and windows, but the inside ... This
person Grandier is either very strong or very subtle. I can't understand what