"Diane Duane - Tales Of The Five 2 - The Door Into Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

the old rede that spoke of her family's luck. That luck would run out some day, when the last of her line died by his or her own hand, in a time of ice and
darkness. But that hardly had anything to do with her. She wasn't the last of the tai-Enraesi, and anyway her luck was holding splendidly. She would be
riding out of here with three good friends, a sometime lover, a prince about to retake his throne, a fire elemental, and the first man in a thousand years to
focus his Fire. So maybe, maybe just this once, everything was going to turn out all right. . . .




One
Sirronde stared at the Goddess. "Are You saying, then, that You were wrong to make heroes?"
"Indeed not," She said. "But I should have warned them— if you save the world too often, it starts to expect it."
Tales of the Darthene South, book iv, 29




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THE DOOR INTO SHADOW




When she was studying in the Silent Precincts, the Rodmis-tresses had warned her: If you're going to look for meaning in a dream, first
make sure it's your own. Any sensitive is most sensitive in her sleep; and others' dreams can draw you in and fool you. Now, therefore,
Segnbora held quite still in her sleep so as not to disturb whoever else was dreaming the landscape into which she had stumbled. It wasn't
often, after all, that one was privileged to see the Universe being created. The Maiden was working, as She always is, while the other two
Persons of the Goddess, the Mother and the Eldest, looked on. Young and fair and preoccupied was the Maiden, as She worked elbow-
deep in stars and flesh and dirt. She was so delighted with the wild diversity of Her creation that She never noticed the Mother and the
Eldest desperately trying to get Her attention. They saw what she did not: the shapeless, lurking hunger that hid in the darkness at the
Universe's borders.
Finally the Maiden, satisfied that Her world was complete, cried out the irrevocable Word that started life running on its own and sealed
the Universe against any subtractions. And the instant She had done so, Death stood up from where it had been hiding, and laughed at
Her.
She had locked the doors of the world, and had locked Death in. Slowly it would suck the Universe dry of life, and She could not prevent
it. Nor could She prevent Death's dark-ness from casting shadows sideways from Her light—rogue aspects of Her, darksides, bent on
destroying more swiftly what was already doomed. The Maiden was grief-stricken, and took counsel with Her otherselves to find some
way to




combat death. Among Them, They invented first the heart's love, and then the body's—lying down together in the manner of woman with
woman, and becoming with child.
The Maiden, becoming the Mother now, brought forth twins—sons, or daughters, or daughter and son; the ambiva-lence of the dream
made the Firstborn seem all of these at once. Swiftly They grew, and discovered Love in Their Mother's arms—then turned to one another
and discovered it anew. But in the midst of Their bliss, surrounded by the blue Fire that was Their Mother's gift and Their pride, the Death
stood up again. It entered one of the Lovers and taught that one jealousy.
The shadowed Lover slew the innocent One—and in the same act destroyed Its own Fire, which had been bound by love to the Other's.
Cursing, the Dark Lover fled in a rage into the outer darkness, where It would reenact Its murder and loss and bereavement for as long as
the Universe should last. It was not a Lover anymore, but the Shadow.