"Kerr,.Katharine.-.Westlands.01.-.A.Time.Of.Exile" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

The man frowned in thought. Although his face was both exceptionally handsome and elven, his hair was as yellow as a daffodil, his lips were a sour-cherry red, and his eyes were sky blue-colors as artificial as the tent paints that the artisans ground out of earths and barks.
"We don't understand, either," he said at last. "Or we'd tell you outright. Listen, girl, see if you can solve the puzzle for us. When there's iron around we can't come through to your world properly. We swell and shift and suffer. It hurts, I tell you."
"Through to our world? And where's your world, then?"
"Far away and over the sky and under the hill," the young woman said, and eagerly, leaning forward in her saddle. "Would you like to see?"
Dallandra felt a danger warning like a slap across the face.
"Someday maybe, but I've got to get home now and tend my herds."
She swung her horse's head around, kicked him mercilessly, and galloped away while their laughter howled round her head and seemed to linger in her mind for a long, long time.
Thanks to the male Guardian's frankness, Aderyn could unravel a bit of the puzzle, or rather, his old master, whom Aderyn contacted through the fire, did the unraveling when Aderyn discussed the information with him.
"He says they must be halfway between spirits and us," Aderyn reported. "The bodies we see are really just etheric substance, come through to the physical, and not flesh at all. They must be able to cast a powerful glamour over themselves as well to change their appearance and all, but Nevyn says that there has to be some sort of real substance for them to work with. Do you know what a lodestone is?"
"I don't."
"It's a thing Bardek merchants invented. They take an iron needle and do somewhat to it so that it soaks up an excess of aethyr. I don't know what they do-the sailing guilds keep it secret, you see. When they're done with it, it attracts tiny iron filings-oh, it's a strange thing to watch, because the filings cling to the needle like hairs on a cat! But the important thing is, after they've done this, one end of the needle always points south. They use it to navigate."
"By the Dark Sun herself! A wonder indeed! But what does this have to do with the Guardians?"
"Well, Nevyn says that iron would soak up aethyr from their presence and become much like a lodestone. Then it would either attract or repel the etheric substance they're made of."
"Making them shrink or swell, just like that fellow said."
"Just so As to their true home, it might lie on the etheric, but they're not part of the Wildfolk. Then again, Nevyn says it might lie in some part of the universe that we don't even know about."
"And a great lot of help that is! But it doesn't matter where they belong. What counts is what they want with us. They claim they've served the People in the past. Do you think they're like your Lords of Light, the Great Ones? I mean, souls like us who've gone on before us to the Light?"
"I asked Nevyn that, and he said he doubted it, just because the guardians seem so odd and arbitrary and, well, so dangerous."
"Well, then, maybe they're meant to come after us."
"But that's the Wildfolk's Wyrd, to grow under our care and become truly conscious. What I wonder is why the Guardians always appear as elves and ape elven ways. I don't trust them, Dalla, and I wish you wouldn't go off alone to meet them."
"But if I don't, how are we going to find out anything about them?"
"Couldn't we just ask the Forest Folk when we ride east in the spring?"
"The only thing the Forest Folk ever say about the Guardians is that they're gods."
Dallandra suddenly realized that Aderyn's warning was irritating her. How dare he tell me what to do! she thought. But she knew that in truth the Guardians were so fascinating that she simply didn't want to give them up. That very afternoon she left all iron behind, took her favorite mare, and rode out to the grasslands. Not far from the winter camp was a place where three rivulets came together to form a stream, and according to the "children's tales" the joining of three streams always marked a spot favored by the Guardians. In the spirit of testing a theory Dallandra rode straight there. She saw the horse first, a white gelding with rusty-red ears, then its rider, dismounted and lounging in the soft grass on the other side of the water-joining from her. When she rode up and dismounted, he got to his feet and held out his hand. In the cold winter sun his impossibly yellow hair seemed to glow with a light of its own.
"Come sit with me, little sister." His voice was as soft as the sounding of a harp.
"Oh, I think. I'll stay on my side of the water, thank you. After all, sir, I don't even know your name."
He tossed, his head back and laughed.
"Now that's one up for you! You can call me Evandar."
"I don't want a name I can call you. I want your true name."
"Another one up for you! What if I told you it was Kerun?"
"I'd say you were lying, because that's the name of a Round-ear god."
"And you score the third point. If I tell you my true name, will you tell me yours?"
"That depends. Will you tell the others my name, even though I won't know theirs?"
"My woman's name is Alshandra, my daughter's is Elessario, and I actually and truly am Evandar. It was going to be a jest, you see, to tell you my true name and have you think it false, and in your thinking it false it would have had no power, though power it should have had, and so it all would have been satisfying, somehow. For a jest, that is."
If he had been elven, he would have been daft, she decided, but since he was his own kind, who knew if he were daft or sane? A bargain, though, was a bargain.
"My name is Dallandra."
"A pretty name it is. Now come join me on my side of the stream, because I've told you my name."
"No, because I've given you my name in return."
He laughed with another toss of his head.
"You are truly splendid." Like a wink of light off silver, he disappeared, then reappeared standing beside her on her side of the water. "So I shall come to you instead. May I have a kiss for crossing the water?"
"No, because I've already done you the favor you asked me. I've found out about the iron."
Although he listened gravely, his paintpot blue eyes all solemn thought, she wondered if he truly understood her explanation, simply because it seemed so abstract.
"Well," he said finally, "I've never seen one of these lodestones, but I'll wager it would only pain me if I did. Thank you, Dallandra. You're clever as well as beautiful."
His smile was so warm, his eyes so intense, that she automatically took a long step back. His smile vanished into a genuine melancholy.
"Do I displease you so much?" he said
"Not at all. You strike me as a dangerous man, and I wouldn't care to cross Alshandra's jealousy, either."
"More than clever-wise!" He grinned, revealing sharp-pointed teeth. "We never mean to hurt you people, you know. In fact, we've tried to help you more often than not. Well, most of us try to help. There are some . . . " He let the words trail away, stared down at the grass for a long moment, then shrugged the subject away. "We need you, you see."
"Why?"
"To keep from vanishing."
"What? Why would you vanish?"
"I think . . . I think . . . " He looked up, but he stared over her shoulder at the sky. "I think we were meant to be like you, but we stayed behind, somehow. Truly, I think that's it. We stayed behind. Somehow."