It was damp and semi-dark in the cramped dugout. A splinter fumed, illuminating the wretched decoration: several shops and a hearth, near which children played on a tattered skin. Three kids were busy with bast dolls, talking softly in different voices. A young woman, sitting by a dimly lit light, was spinning yarn. She had a pale, haggard face and long hair tied into two braids. The door slammed. From the draft, the amulets suspended from the mother rattled, knocking against each other. Old wooden ones have long lost their protective power and left them only as a memory ... a memory of protection, of a calm, well-fed life. The spinner tossed her head. Fear froze in his dark eyes. A man descended into the dugout. He was short, but broad-shouldered, and dressed in the same way - poorly, almost beggarly. "Get ready," said the newcomer. The inhabitant of the miserable dwelling got up from the bench, dropping the spindle and looking at the man with plaintive doom: - Again? - Necess

Tamir climbed from the cellars of the Citadel to the upper tiers. His head was buzzing, and from temple to temple flew a deaf and booming: “Knock. Here! TUK! The pain throbbed, pressed on the eyes, responded in the back of the head. And so it was every time. After every lesson. It was as if witchcraft was pulling the life force out of the guy, giving in return only dizziness and nausea.Left behind are the turns of the teaching, which brought, in addition to the current suffering, knowledge of how to put to rest a rising baby.And ahead was still a meeting with Lesana’s kref, foreshadowing the throwing of a knife at a target, and a lesson with Ailish’s mentor, who today threatened to ask in which decoction the wolfberries are suitable for medicinal purposes, and in which they are plotted to death.Interestingly, Eilisha knows that healers can not only heal, but also take life? This thought, inadvertently coming into the sick head, terrified. Tamir could not imagine his beloved doing b

Donatos found himself in the yard, where he talked with a red-haired healer, whose name Tamir, no matter how hard he tried, could not remember. However, the young novice did not give a damn about this and began to frequent, barely abreast of the krefs: "Master, I'm not a sorcerer!" That cannot be! The watchman looked at the learner with squeamish pity and turned back to his interlocutor, only throwing a careless over his shoulder: - Change your clothes. But the novice did not want to retreat so easily. - Well, what a charmer of me! he shouted desperately. “Not a spellweaver, but a bow tie,” the kref corrected indifferently, “remember this firmly.” Spellweavers at fancy fairs show fools like you and sell weed to women to poison the fruit. And the guards are those who block the way for the dead and give rest to those who walk. Once again I hear that you are interfering with our craft with a buffoon business, I will tear out my tongue. Tamir shuddered, but did not stop stubbornnes

Leaf a day - the average month of autumn - this year stood out with severe frosts. Standing on the outskirts of the old buoy, Tamir absentmindedly watched the voracious waxwings feast on frozen mountain ash. Shrugging his shoulders, he looked down at his feet. There, at the bottom of the freshly dug grave, Donatos was preparing for the ceremony. Here he took out a knife from his belt and began to draw a continuous line on the turf walls, pronouncing the words of the spell. When the line converged and the circle closed, the sorcerer cut his left palm with the same blade soiled in the ground, sprinkled the pit with blood and quietly began to read a conspiracy that closed the path to the world of the living for the dead. The words of repose sounded measuredly, the birds quarreling over a large bunch of berries shouted, a pregnant woman sobbed muffledly in the distance, covering her face swollen with tears with a corner of the cover. On the sides of the mother huddled two sobbing boys in

This year 's morning did live up to its name, because it settled down dank and gray due to the incessant winds and rains. This morning, too, the siverko rushed at the windows, trying to tear off the wooden shutters. The shutters with their wrought-iron hinges didn't budge, they only creaked with strain. And the reckless reckless man from anger threw handfuls of icy drizzle at them. Eilisha woke up with a bone-chilling chill. I desperately wanted to warm up. Alas, the hearth burned out long ago, the wind blew out all the heat, so much so that the floor was covered with ashes. To go to the soap-house, to stand by the hot stove! But for this it is necessary to get out from under the blanket, pull on cold, wavy clothes and go down to the cellars along the icy corridors. The girl shuddered. For several days now, she had felt overwhelmed and weak. It was like some kind of ghoul drank strength from her. Pulling the skinny blanket up, the young healer curled up in a ball, trying to keep war