"Sara Douglass - Redemption 3 - Crusader" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

"For you," Dare Wing said, "I would fetch the coals that feed the flames in the firepits of the
AfterLife."
DragonStar's hand rose to cup DareWing's face. "From you," he murmured, "I require far more. A
flower a day from the field that surrounds you."
Both men smiled with love, and then DragonStar rose, and addressed the four witches in the circle.
"Yet the field that surrounds this dome," he said, "is a field of bare earth. It has been turned over and
ribbed and ridged, but it lies barren. What does it represent?"
"Us," said Goldman, who delighted in such philosophical dabblings. "We have been ploughed, and
the seeds laid within us, but we have yet to flower."
"Aye," DragonStar said.
 "Perhaps we cannot," Gwendylyr said, "until Dare Wing is healed."
DragonStar nodded, but did not say anything.
"We must heal Dare Wing," Faraday said, her voice quiet and introspective. "Not DragonStar. We
must."
Again DragonStar nodded.
"And I must heal myself," Dare Wing said.
"Stretch your wings," DragonStar said. "All of you."
And he stepped back out of the circle.
An expression of mild panic crossed Leagh's face, and one hand tightened briefly over her belly.
"How do we do this?"
"We all have Acharite magic within us," Faraday said, "now freed, as we have all come through
death."
DragonStar had now walked very quietly out of the dome, and was wandering through the
ploughed field. The Alaunt had settled down into a restful, watchful pack to one side of the dome,
while the Star Stallion rested his weight on one hip and dozed, ignoring the lizard who lay
stretched out behind him idly swatting at the stallion's twitching tail.
A tiny star fell from the stallion's mane and fizzled momentarily in the damp earth.
"How strange," Faraday continued, her voice still very quiet, "that we have the use of Acharite
magic, and that DragonStar has placed us within a field of ploughed earth, and has emphasised these
things to us."
Of the others, only DareWing had enough memories of the old Achar to truly understand what
Faraday alluded to.
"You speak of the old god of Achar," he said, then paused to cough violently. "Artor the
Ploughman."
"Artor was evil!" Leagh and Gwendylyr both said together.
"Yes," Faraday said, "but perhaps we should not disregard the influence Artor would have had
on the literal physical
realm of Achar, as also the influence that that would have had on our power."
She paused, trying to sort out her thoughts. "Of the five of us, it is Dare Wing who is sick. He has a
mixture of blood, Icarii and Acharite ... and maybe the Artor influence that — possibly — exists in all of
us has sickened him nigh unto death."
"I thought DragonStar said it was ground fever," Gwendylyr said, frowning.
"Ground fever is the outward face of the sickness," Goldman said, catching Faraday's train of
thought, "but the stain on DareWing's spirit is the Artorite stain. It would affect him far more than any of
us."
"And is that why this field has not yet flowered?" Leagh said. "And why DareWing cannot get
better? We must expel the remaining influence of Artor?"
"Yes!" Faraday said, and the others all smiled, for the explanation felt good to them. "Yes. We must
reject the rib and ridge of the ploughed earth."
"How?" said Gwendylyr, ever concerned with the practical.