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

"She's my daughter, and I shall take her wherever I want," Alshandra said.
"Not unless she goes willingly, and the chains show she was less than willing. Where were you going to take her? Farther in?"
"That's no affair of yours." Alshandra turned on Dalla. "You may have my man, because I tired of him long before you came to us, but you shall not have my daughter."
"I don't want her for my sake. I only want her to have the life that should be hers, that should be yours, truly, as well."
With a shimmer of tight Alshandra changed her form, becoming old, wrinkled, pathetic in black rags.
"You'll take her far away, far, far away, and never shall I see her again."
"Come with her, then. Follow her, the way all of your people are going to do. Join us all in life." Dallandra glanced Elessario's way. "Do you want to go with your mother?"
"No, I want to stay with you."
Alshandra howled, swelling up tall and strong, dressed like a hunter in her doeskin tunic and boots, the bow clasped in red-veined hands.
"Have it your way, witch! You'll lose this battle in the end. I swear it. I've found some as will help me, back in that ugly little world of yours. I've made friends there, powerful friends. They'll get me my daughter back the moment she tries to leave us. I'll make them promise, and I know they will, because they grovel at my feet, they do."
She was gone, winking out like a blown flame, but all round them the wind seemed cold and the sunlight, shadowed. Shaking and pale, Elessario leaned into Dallandra's clasp.
"Friends? Groveling?" Evandar said. "I wonder what she means by that. I very much do. I'd say it bodes ill, an ill-omened thing all round."
"I'd never argue with you." Dalla felt her voice as very small and weak. "We'd best try to find out what she means by friends."
"Will the finding be a safe thing? I don't know, mind. I'm asking you."
"I don't know, either. Can't we get away from all this music and the noise and ail?"
"Of course. Ell, I fear to leave you alone. Come with us."
"I'm so tired, Father. I don't want to."
"Well, I'm not going to leave you sleeping beside the river like a falcon's lure. I-" All at once he smiled. "Very well, my love, my daughter, my darling. Rest you shall have. Dalla, if you'll step here to my side?"
Puzzled, Dallandra did just that. Evandar raised one hand and waved out a circle that seemed to float from his fingers and ring his daughter round. He chanted, too, in some language that Dallandra had never heard before, just softly, briefly while Elessario yawned, reaching up to rub her eyes. It seemed that the wind caught her hair and tossed it, spread it out around her as she reached up higher, grabbed at it, her fingers turning long and slender, growing out, her arms reaching, stretching, stiffening, suddenly, as gray-brown bark wrapped her body round, and her hair, all green and gold, sprouted into leaves. A young oak tree, some seven feet tall and slender, nodded in the evening wind.
"Alshandra the Inelegant will never think to look for her there," Evandar remarked. "She truly can be a bit thick at times."
Dallandra merely stared, gape-mouthed, until he took her hand and led her away.

While Evandar was confronting his wife in his strange homeland, in the world of men Jill was trying to discharge what she saw as her obligation to Salamander before she moved on. After the triumph at Myleton Noa, the troupe set sail, falling into the routine of sailing down the coast some miles, then disembarking at yet another sodden hamlet, where they would be received like kings. Jill had the distinct feeling that Salamander was avoiding her. When everyone was crammed on board the small and smelly coaster, it was of course impossible to get a word alone with him. On land, whenever she went looking for him for their talk about his studies, he always seemed to be negotiating with an innkeep, or teaching a member of the troupe a juggling trick, or solving some problem among the acrobats, or arranging their next show. Finally, though, one evening in a good-sized town called Injaro, he made the mistake of leaving the dinner table early while Marka stayed behind to gossip with her friends. Jill followed him upstairs and cornered him in his inn chamber.
"Uh, I was just going back down," he squeaked. "I have to talk to Vinto and make sure the troupe's ready to take ship. We're leaving on the dawn tide, you know."
"Indeed? Then why have you lit all these lamps?"
"Er, just looking for somewhat. Are you all packed and ready for the journey? Best make sure you are."
"Stop driveling."
With a heavy sigh Salamander sank down onto an enormous purple cushion and gestured at her to find a seat opposite him. Sitting so close, she could smell the scent of sweet wine clinging to him and see the dark circles smudged under his puffy eyes.
"I was only wondering how your studies were going." She made her voice as mild as possible.
"I haven't done one rotten thing, and you know that as well as I do. Jill, I'm so cursed weary!"
"Well, then, when do you plan to take them up again?"
"Never."
The last thing she'd expected was candor. He went so wide-eyed and tense that she knew he'd shocked himself, too, but though she waited, he refused to back down, merely watched the insects swarming round the oil lamps and let the silence grow.
"Do you truly think you can just turn your back and walk away from the dweomer?" she said at last.
"I intend to try." His hands were shaking so hard that he clamped them down on his thighs. "I am sick to my heart of being badgered and prodded."
"What's brought all this on?"
"I should think it would be clear, plain, obvious, and evident. I've found a thing that I want more than dweomer power." He paused for one of his sunny smiles, and never had the gesture seemed less appropriate. "A normal life, Jill, a normal life. Does that have one shred of meaning for the likes of you?"
"What are you talking about? What's so splendid about traveling the roads with a troupe of mangy acrobats and this poor child you've married?"
"Of course it's not splendid. That's the point."
"You're a dolt, Ebany."
"Oh, I suppose I must look that way to you, truly. I no longer care. I've found the woman I love, and I've found a way to have a family of my own while we travel the roads, just like I've always loved to do, and cursed, plagued, excoriated, blighted, and scourged will I be before I give one whit of it up."
"I'm not asking you to give up one thing, just to develop the talent you were born with."
"Talent? Oh, ye gods!" All at once he exploded, talking much too fast, his voice hissing as he tried to keep from shouting. "I am so sick of that ugly little word. Do you think I ever asked for it? Talent. Oh, certainly, I know I have talent for magic. That's all I've ever heard in my long and cursed life, from the time that my wretched father dragged me to meet Aderyn when I was but a little child. Talent. You have splendid talent for the dweomer. You must study it. It would be a waste to not study it. Your people need you to study it. No one, not one blasted soul, whether elven or human, not one person in the entire world has ever asked me if I wanted to study the blasted dweomer. All they did was push and press and mock and nag until by every god in the sky I'm sick of the very name of dweomer."
"My heart aches for you, but-"
"Don't you be sarcastic with me."
"I wasn't. I'm trying to point out that-"
"I don't want to hear it! By the black hairy ass of the Lord of Hell, Jill, can't you see? I've finally found what I want in life, and I'll have it no matter how many platitudes and how much invective you heap upon my head."
"Whoever said you couldn't have it?"
"The dweomer itself. How can you sit there and tell me that I could have both, you of all people on this blasted earth?"
Jill came perilously close to slapping him. Her rage at having that ancient wound reopened took her so much by surprise that for a long moment she couldn't speak. When he shrank back, suddenly pale, suddenly weak-cringing, or so she thought of it-the rage turned as cold as a steel blade on a winter morning. She got up slowly and stood for a moment, her hands on her hips, looking down as he crouched on the cushion, one hand raised as if to ward off a blow.