"Nancy Etchemendy - The River Temple" - читать интересную книгу автора (Etchemendy Nancy)

since passed, and my regrets lie inside me like jagged shards.
***

Friend, you have been kind to me though I am a stranger. Kirth is my name, and I was born in the
north, in the city of Handred beside the mighty river Umbya. Ten miles down the river from that
city stands a vast edifice, the Temple of Handred. Would to Feder that it had never been built, for
it has caused great sorrow.

This shabby bundle of mine, this cursed artifact from the temple, is the reason for my journey. It is
The Book of the lesser god Makna, who was known to the ancients as McKenna. I swore that I
would place it in the hands of the High Colonel of Pardox in a land not far south of here called
Uth, if there be any still alive in that hapless place. But I have failed. I am a man who has seen the
sins of gods and the foolishness of men, and I am broken, and I am afraid to die.

***

Though I was their brother, and though I adored them, Arain and Mera shared a closeness in which I had
no part. They were almost one person. They could speak to each other with their eyes. They could finish
the half-expressed thoughts of one another. They not only looked alike; their minds ran on the same
paths, through countries that seemed trackless to the rest of us. Yet Arain and Mera belonged to me as
they did to no one else, for the blood of their veins ran in mine. My heart beat high when I met them in
the street at noon and exchanged warm greetings with them while others watched in admiration.

At night Arain and Mera would often steal away from the school and run through the dark streets to the
door of Mathias’ workshop. There the other apprentice, Taud, and I tended the fire through the night,
and slept on pallets beside the old kiln.

Arain would bring sweet cakes smuggled away from the school's kitchens, and Mera would bring wine.
We four would laugh and talk for hours, far into the night. I have not forgotten those times of good
company and good cheer, and the warmth of firelight on the fair and youthful faces of Arain and Mera.

Taud and I learned much. My sisters sometimes brought books with them, and in this way we learned to
read. The books stirred our curiosity and made us wonder about many things that seemed strange to us,
mysterious and puzzling things about Handred and the temple and the gods. To speak of these matters
intrigued but frightened me, for I had a vague feeling that we would be punished if anyone heard us.
Perhaps it was the retribution of Makna that I feared. I would have done better to fear Radna.

My sisters were born in good health, and they delighted in everything physical. They loved good food,
and the wondrous delirium of too much wine; they excelled at sports, at hunting, at games of combat and
endurance. It seemed quite natural to me when I returned early from the clay pit one evening to find them
stretched before the fire with Taud, who was several years older than I . Adolescent, driven by urges that
perplexed me, I envied Taud. But it was not a brother's place to speak of such desires, so I contented
myself by staying out of their way so as to make it easy for them.

One night toward the end of my boyhood, my sisters came to the workshop door with books and wine.
For some time, I had begun these evenings by going out to fetch firewood. There I usually dawdled,
chopping more wood than we needed, in order to give them extra time alone with Taud. But this night it
was chilly, and I hadn't worn a coat, so I finished more quickly than usual. I surprised them when I
opened the door.