"Kerr, Katharine - Westlands 02 - A Time Of Omens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

And that was the worst of Salamander, Jill reflected. Just when you were about to allow yourself the pleasure of berating him, he went and did something right.

Evandar lounged upon a hilltop that overlooked the remains of a formal garden, roses gone wild and tangled, hedges sending long green fingers into the air, muddy walks cracking. The plan of squares and half circles stretched out skewed, as well, as if the right half had shrunk and the left grown along the diagonal.
"It looks squashed," he remarked to Dallandra. "As if a giant had fallen against it."
"I see what you mean. Is this the garden you showed me when first I came here?"
"It is, yes, but now it's spoilt. And the house, the splendid rooms I made for you-they've all gone away, too, turned into air and blown far, far away. It always happens. I try to build as once your people built, but never does a stone or stick last me out."
"This world was meant for flux, not forms. If only you'd come be born into my world . . . "
"Shan't!" He tossed his head in irritation. "Don't speak of it."
She knew his moods and let the subject drop.
"I found a marvel, Dalla. The islands of which your friend spoke? They've rebuilt Rinbaladelan there, but it's a poor thing, all small and flimsy, wood where once stood stone."
"You found them? You didn't tell me that!"
He shrugged, then rose, standing for a moment to frown at the ruined garden. Twilight gathered purple in the sky and dropped shadows round him like rain. Wind ruffled his yellow hair with a flash of palpable light. At moments like these Dalla found herself wondering who or what he might be, and where they might be, as well, if perhaps even she'd died and all this bright country was only an illusion of life built of memory and longing. It seemed that her very wondering threatened to destroy the world round her. The hill upon which they stood dissolved and began to float away in tendrils of mist, while the garden below became only a pile of weeds and sticks. Evandar grew as thin as a shadow himself, a colored shadow cast upon empty air. Her heart thudded in her throat.
"Don't go!" The words seemed torn out of her. "I love you."
All at once he stood solidly in front of her, and the hands that caught her shoulders, the mouth that caught her own, were warm and substantial. He kissed her again, his mouth all hunger, his hands pulling her tight against him. Together they sank to their knees, then lay down, clasped in each other's arms. She lost all awareness of her body, if indeed it were anything more than a mere image or form of a body, yet she could feel him, twined round, feel the energy pulsing from him as tangible as flesh, feel the power flowing from her own essence as well to mingle with his, while they shared an ecstasy more intense than any sexual pleasure she'd ever known. On waves of sensation that made them both cry aloud they seemed to soar, a twined, twinned consciousness.
And yet, afterward, as always, she couldn't quite remember what had happened to make her feel that way. They lay on the hillside, clasped in each other's arms like an ordinary pair of lovers, and yet, without her conscious thought, whatever illusions of clothing that they wore had returned. She felt cool, alert, almost preternaturally calm, and he merely smiled at her as if he were surprised at what they'd shared. Yet when he released her, she saw the garden blooming down below, renewed and glorious.
"I love you as well," he said, as if nothing had interrupted their earlier talk. "Dalla, Dalla, I thought I was so clever when I lured you here, but you're the hunter and the snare both. And in the end you'll abandon me, no doubt, like some animal left dead so long in a trap that its fur's all rotted and spoilt."
She pulled away from him and sat up, running her hands through her long tangle of hair. Already her hands and the hair itself felt perfectly normal to her, no different from the flesh she remembered. He lay back on one elbow and watched, his face as stricken as a man who's been told he'll hang on the morrow.
"In the end you'll force me to go," she said at last. "I love you too much to stay and watch you die into nothingness."
"That's a cruel speaking,"
"Is it? What would you have me do instead?"
"I don't know." He paused, then shook his head. "By those gods you speak of, I'm weary tonight. I went a long way, seeking out those islands. You should see them for yourself."
"I want to, yes. I wish I could talk with Jill about them."
"Why can't you? Go with my blessing, my love."
"It's not that. I just never have enough time to say much once I find her, before the vision breaks, I mean."
"Well, if you insist on going only in visions."
"And how else am I supposed to go?"
"Are you not here in the world between all worlds? Wait! Forgive me. I forget you don't know. Come with me, my love, and you shall learn to walk the roads." He hesitated, cocking his head to one side like a dog. "Where's Elessario?"
"I don't know."
"Let's just go take a look at her. I have the strangest feeling round my heart."
A feeling that, it turned out, was well justified. Hand in hand they drifted down from the hilltop to find the Host feasting in the meadowlands. It seemed a huge pavilion of cloth-of-gold, hung with blue banners, sheltered rows of long tablets, set with candles in silver candelabra, but once inside Dallandra realized that she could look through the roof and see stars, spread in the long drift of the Snowy Road. Music floated over the talk and laughter as they made their way through the tables and asked for his child. None had seen her. All at once the pavilion changed, grew stone inside the cloth, the meadow crisping into straw, the banners transmuting to faded tapestries. Out of the comer of her eye Dallandra thought she saw fire leaping in a huge stone hearth, yet when she looked straight at it, she saw only the moon, rising through a mullioned window.
"Come with me." Evandar tugged her hand so hard that he nearly dragged her away. "I don't like this."
At the back door they found Elessario, dres sed in a long tunic of blue, kirtled at the waist with a silver, white, and green plaid. In her hands she carried a loaf of bread, which she offered to an old beggar woman, all gnarled hands and brown rags, leaning on a bit of stick.
"Mother, Mother," the child was saying. "Why won't you come in and feast?"
"No more am I welcome in your father's hall. Child, can't you see that they plot your death? Come away, come with me to safety. Better the life of a beggar on the roads than this murderous luxury."
"Miother, no, they mean to give us life, true life, the like of which we've never had before."
The old woman spat onto the ground.
"Touching, Alshandra, very touching," Evandar said suddenly. "Truly, you should go be born into Deverry and grow into a bard.'
With a howl of rage the beggar woman rose up, shedding her rags like water dripping, dressed now in a deerskin tunic and boots; her stick became a hunting bow, and her hair flowed gold over her shoulders. Dimly, at the margins of her sight, Dallandra realized that the stone broch behind them had disappeared, and that the cloth-of-gold pavilion glimmered in the moonlight in its stead.
"My curse upon you, Evandar!" Alshandra snarled. "A mother's curse upon you and your elven whore both!"
"With a gust of wind and a swirl of dry leaves from some distant forest's floor, she disappeared. Evandar rubbed his chin and sighed.
"She always could be a bit tiresome," he remarked. "Elli, come with us. I've a lesson to give Dallandra, and I'm not leaving you here alone."

As Bardekian merchantmen go, the ship was a good one, soundly built and deep, with room enough in the hold for the troupe's gear and room enough on deck twixt single mast and stern for them to camp under improvised tents. The troupe's horses had a comfortable place up on the deck tethered by the bow rather than in the stinking hold. During the crossing Jill spent most of her time in their equine company. Even in normal circumstances the troupe lived in a welter of spats and jests, gossip and sentiment, outright nghts and professions of undying loyalty, and now that they were sailing off to unknown country, they were as tightly strung as the wela-wela. Tucked in between the horses and the bow rail, Jill could have privacy for her meditations. Every now and then Keeta joined her, for a bit of a rest as the juggler put it.
"I don't know how you stand this lot sometimes," Jill remarked to her one morning.
"Neither do I." Keeta flashed a grin. "Oh, they're all good people, really, and the only family I've ever had or am likely to have. But they do carry on so. It's Marka's marriage, you see. She started out as nothing, the apprentice, the waif we all pitied, and now here she is, the leader's wife. Everyone's all stirred up and jockeying for position."
"And Salamander's really become the leader, hasn't he?"
"Oh, yes. No doubt about that, my dear, none at all."
At that moment Jill realized why she'd objected to Salamander's marriage. He'd so loaded himself up with responsibility for other people's lives that she couldn't possibly reproach him for letting his dweomer studies lapse. She said nothing, merely watched him over the next few days as he busied himself with the troupe or sat grinning beside his new wife. Perhaps he knows best, she would think. Perhaps he simply doesn't have the strength of will, perhaps he's too weak, somewhere deep in his heart, to take up his destiny. Yet, despite this sensible reasoning, she felt that she was mourning a death. For Nevyn's sake, she would do her best to keep him from squandering his talent, but a crowded ship was no place to confront him.
From the moment the troupe landed, Jill hated Anmurdio. While Orystinna was every bit as hot, it was a dry heat there, thanks to the way the mountains channeled and deflected the prevailing winds. Anmurdio, the collective name for a group of volcanic islands, caught the tropic-wet winds full in the face. It seemed that if it wasn't actually raining, then the wind was howling round, or if the air was still for a brief while, then it became so humid that everyone wished it would rain. The towns-random clusters of wooden houses-sagged in the ever-present mud between stretches of primal jungle. The water wasn't safe to drink without a good dollop of wine in it; beef was unknown, and bread rare. Yet all of these aggravations might have been bearable if it weren't for the mosquitoes, drifting in twilight clouds as thick as smoke.
Traveling in heavy wagons would be impossible, but fortunately all the hamlets in the archipelago lay right on the ocean. Swearing and sweating over the expense, Salamander made a bargain with the owner of a little coaster that would just barely hold the troupe. The wagon horses, which Marka loved like pets, had to be stabled at a further cost in the main town-city being far too dignified a word for Myleton Noa-rather than merely sold and abandoned.