Blue

Начало книги

Veresan of the Summer Fire, Lord of the Dawn Marches, Ban-Keeper of the Seleighe, flew cattle class with Qantas. After a day spent wedged between a garlic-scented businessman and a youth all elbows and twitches, he crept through Sydney’s snarled traffic to a charmless suburban box embellished with a metal plate: "Rumiko Kent, Arrangements". Six hours before the world took up residence in a hand basket, and the witch didn’t even answer her door.

After a calming breath, Veresan touched the symbol of the Ban hanging heavy around his neck, then followed a mechanical droning to the rear of the house. The need to add a new power to the Ban was too important to be jeopardised by petty games played with travel bookings, or the failings of the locals.

Finding a side gate open, Veresan rounded the corner of the house only to stop in disgust before a broad expanse of grass dominated by a central tree. A eucalypt of textured milk rose to sprawl branches dripping spear-head leaves, its trunk circled with a shimenawa, the sacred rope of purification of a Shinto shrine. Beneath it a diminutive woman wearing a sunhat was mowing a pentagram into the lawn.

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