"Kerr, Katharine - Deverry 02 - Darkspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

The assembly nodded in agreement, their images mimicking the movements their bodies would have made. The news had spread that in a remote corner of Eldidd province, a lord named Corbyn had risen up in rebellion against his overlord, Tieryn Lovyan of Dun Gwerbyn. Normally this would have been of no concern to the dweomer; rebellions and bloodshed happened all the time in Deverry, and overlords had armies to deal with such things. But Corbyn had been ensorceled by a dweomer-man gone mad, Loddlaen by name, who was half-elven, Aderyn’s apprentice. Now Loddlaen was dead, the rebellion crushed, but the matter was far from settled.
‘As soon as I joined Aderyn here to defeat Loddlaen,’ Nevyn went on, ‘I realized that someone had ensorceled him and was using him to work harm. Now, that someone had to be a master of the dark dweomer. Once he realized that he was facing me, he fled. As far as I can tell, he took ship for Bardek.’
The assembly stirred uneasily. Caer, a tall, rangy man whose hazel eyes were green at the moment, drifted forward to speak.
‘What exactly was the goal of the dark master? Did you ever find that out?’
‘Only in the most vague terms. Tieryn Lovyan has a son named Rhodry. Years ago, I was given an omen that his Wyrd is crucial to Eldidd, and so I’ve been watching over him. It seems that the whole point of this cursed war was to kill him. He was leading his mother’s army as cadvridoc, you see.’
‘The dark masters must have discovered the lad’s importance, then,’ a woman named Nesta said. ‘Do you know what his Wyrd may be?’
‘Not in the least, and that’s part of the trouble. No doubt our enemies know more about it than I do. They’re the ones who are always troubling their hearts about the future. The likes of us trust in the Light.’
They nodded in agreement. The Great Ones who stand behind the dweomer, the Lords of Wyrd and the Lords of Light, never communicate clearly and directly with their servants, for the simple reason that those disincarnate spirits exist on a plane unimaginably removed from the physical world. It’s impossible for them to reach down far enough to do more than send vague hints, feelings, dream images and warnings to the minds of those trained to receive these brief messages. For those who walk in the Light such hints are enough, but the dark dweomer is always picking at the future like a scab.
‘I hope you’re guarding the lad well,’ Caer said. They’ll doubtless make another try on him.’
‘Well, that’s somewhat of a puzzle.’ Nevyn spoke slowly as he thought things out. ‘I’ve spent many an hour meditating, but I’ve received no warnings that he’s still in danger. It’s doubly odd, because after the war was over, Rhodry was sent into exile by his elder brother.’
‘What?’ Nesta said. ‘Who’s the elder brother? I don’t know Eldidd politics at all well.’
‘My apologies. This is all of such great moment to me that I forget others aren’t so interested. Rhodry’s mother is Lovyan, and she rules the tierynrhyn of Dun Gwerbyn in her own right through the Clw Coc clan. His father was Tingyr, a Maelwaedd of Aberwyn, and now Rhodry’s eldest brother, Rhys, is gwerbret of Aberwyn.’
They all nodded, as if saying that the information was enough to get on with. Understanding the complicated web of bloodlines and landholds among the noble-born took all the long training of a bard or priest.
‘Now, Rhys and Rhodry have hated each other for years. It has naught to do with dweomer or Wyrd; it’s just one of those nasty things that happen between blood kin. So, one night in Aberwyn, Rhys insulted his brother so badly that Rhodry started to draw his sword on him - and remember that Rhys is a gwerbret.’
‘Rhodry’s lucky his brother didn’t hang him,’ Caer said.
‘Just so. Rhys saw his chance to get rid of his hated kinsman and took it. Now Rhodry’s riding the roads as a silver dagger.’
‘Indeed?’ Nesta broke in. ‘I’m surprised you let him go for a mercenary soldier.’
‘I had naught to say about it, I assure you, or I wouldn’t have. But Rhodry’s only the least part of our troubles. Now, Nesta here tracked the dark master when he came through Cerrmor, and neither she, I, nor any of our elemental spirits recognized the man. Here we’d been thinking we knew every fool who practiced this wretched craft. Well, we’ve all been too smug.’
‘And he made his escape easily, too,’ Nesta picked it up. ‘Just as if he had refuges ready all along his way. He must have been laying this scheme for a long time, right under our noses.’
Several of the men muttered quite unenlightened oaths under their breaths. Aderyn stepped forward to Speak.
‘What frightens me is that he could ensorcel Loddlaen so easily. Loddlaen’s mind was more elven than human. Do you see what that means? Our enemy must have a good knowledge of elven ways, but I’m as sure as I can be that no dark dweomerman has ever traveled in the elven lands.’
‘Bad news, indeed,’ Caer said. ‘Well, then, the hard truth of the matter is that we haven’t been vigilant enough. That has to change.’
‘Exactly,’ Nevyn said. ‘We can work out the details among ourselves later, but there’s one more thing I want to put to the full Council of Thirty-Two. During this war, hundreds of men saw dweomer worked openly.’
For a moment the assembly was shocked into silence; then the talk burst out, just as when a summer storm gathers, the sky leaden gray, growing heavier as the birds hush; then suddenly with a crack of thunder comes the rain. Nevyn turned to Aderyn.
‘It’s time for you to leave us. I’ll contact you later through the fire.’
‘Well and good, then. Truly, you’ve all got much to discuss.’
Aderyn’s image was abruptly gone from the grove. Slowly the assembly quieted itself.
‘Well, now, this is a grave thing,’ Caer said at last. ‘Of course, no one outside of western Eldidd will believe them. In time, the tale will die away.’
‘Provided no one stirs it up again with more dweomer.’
‘Ye gods! Do you think that was part of the dark ones’ scheme, to flush us out into the open?’
‘It’s a possibility, isn’t it?’
The assembly turned uneasy, and with good reason. Once, back in the Dawntime when the people of Bel had first come to Deverry from their original homeland across the eastern seas, the priests of the oak groves known as drwiddion had openly worked dweomer. Men feared them, flattered them, and groveled before them until the inevitable corruption set in. The priests grew rich and held great demesnes; they shaped the laws to their advantage and wielded power like lords. Slowly, of its own accord, the dweomer left them, until their rituals became empty shows and their words of power, mere chatter.
Such are the temptations of temporal power that the priesthood forgot that it had ever had the true dweomer. By Nevyn’s time, they too dismissed tales of wonderworking priests as mere fancies, fit for a bard’s song and nothing more.
Yet the dweomer survived, passed down from master to apprentice in secret. The dweomerfolk swore strict vows to live quiet lives, hiding their skills, lest they too be corrupted by flattery and riches. Caer was the head groom of the gwerbret of Lughcarn’s stables; Nesta, the widow of a Cerrmor spice merchant. Nevyn himself lived the simplest life of all, because he was a herbman, wandering the kingdom with a mule and tending the ills of folk too poor to afford apothecaries and chirurgeons. If those long years of secrecy came to an end, it was likely that, sooner or later, the dweomer-masters might succumb to the same temptations that had drawn the priests from the true path.
‘And there’s another thing,’ Caer said. ‘Most people in the kingdom would label us witches. What if they take it into their minds to hunt us down?’
Nesta shuddered. As an elderly woman, she was extremely vulnerable to such a charge.
‘True enough,’ Nevyn said. ‘And so we -’ He stopped, struck by a thought so urgent that he knew it came from beyond himself, and when he spoke again, his mind-voice rang with prophecy. ‘The time has come for the dweomer to show itself, only a little at first, but the time comes when all shall work openly.’
Those assembled heard the ring and knew that the Lords of Light had spoken through their servant.
‘Oh by the hells!’ Caer whispered. ‘Never did I think to see this day come.’
They all agreed, especially Nevyn.
‘This calls for long hours of meditation,’ he remarked.
‘I promise you all that I’ll put them in, too. We’ve got to move as cautiously as a cat in a bathhouse.’
For some time they discussed the prophecy, until they decided that Nevyn would work out this strange idea while the rest of them lived as they always had. The council broke up, the body-images winking out like blown candles, but Caer and Nevyn lingered in the peaceful stillness of the astral grove. Around them the enormous trees nodded as if in a wind as the astral tides began to change, a gentle stirring that they felt in their minds.
‘It’s a strange thing we’ve heard this day, oh Master of Earth,’ Nevyn remarked. ‘But I intend to pursue the idea, no matter how long it takes me.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried about that. You’ve always been as stubborn as a pig on market day.’
They exchanged a smile of sincere affection. Once, some four hundred years earlier, Caer had been Nevyn’s master when he struggled through his apprenticeship in the dweomer. Although Rhegor, as his name was then, had followed the normal pattern for dweomerfolk and died to be reborn, many times over now, Nevyn himself had lived one single life, sustained by the elemental forces he commanded. Although most people would have coveted such a long life, it was a harsh Wyrd for him to bear, because during his apprenticeship he’d made a grave mistake that had resulted in the deaths of three innocent people, and a rash vow that never would he rest until he’d redeemed his fault.
‘Tell me somewhat,’ Caer said. ‘Do you think you’re close to fulfilling your vow?’
‘I don’t know, I truly don’t. So many times before I thought I was, only to have things slip away from me. But I can tell you this: Gerraent and I have come to terms between us. Part of the chain’s broken once and for all.’
‘Thanks be to every god, then. I tried to warn you about swearing that -’
‘I know, I know, and you’re exactly right: I’m too stubborn for my own wretched good. Ah ye gods, poor Brangwen! You know, I still think of her by that name, even though she only bore it for a few pitiful years. I failed her so badly, and Blaen, too, but when I swore I’d make it up to her, I never thought it would take four hundred beastly years!’