"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 1 - Black Sun Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

right, and everybody would be very relieved, and that was that. Her parents
would be furious at Gresham for keeping her after dark and they would write him
an angry letter, which he would promptly ignore - and then it would be over.
Forever. No more than a memory. And she could say to her children that yes,
she had been out after dark, and they would ask her what it was like, and she
would tell them. A fireside story like any other. Right?
But you are what he wants, a voice whispered inside her. Exactly. You are
what he sends his minions into Jaggonath to find.
“Damn you!” she cried suddenly - meaning her parents, her fears, the night
itself. And her own looks, for that matter. Gods above, what might her life have
been like if she were unattractive, or merely plain, or even of a sturdier type
than she was? Might she have been allowed to play outside after sunset, as
some other children were? Might she have grown accustomed to the night,
ranking its terrors alongside other childhood fears, dealing with them simply and
rationally? Come home on time, her parents would have cautioned. Don’t talk to
strangers. Raise up a ward if some demon appears. And then they would have
let her go out. Gods of Erna, what freedom, what freedom!
She reached up to wipe a tear, half frozen, from her cheek, and then
stopped walking in order to dislodge a bit of mud that had oozed its way into her
shoe. And as she did so, she became intensely aware of the silence that
surrounded her. No other footsteps sounded in the night, though the road on all
sides of her had been heavily trod. No birds sang, no insects chittered, no
children cried in the distance. Nothing. It was as if the whole world had died,
suddenly - as if she were the only creature left on Erna, and this section of road
the last spot where life might exist, in the whole of creation.
Then a sound behind her made her start suddenly. Almost silent, a mere hint
of movement, but set against the night’s backdrop of utter soundlessness it had
the power of a scream. She whirled about, staring back the way she had come.
At a man.
“Forgive me.” His voice was smooth, his carriage elegant. He bowed, soft
brown hair catching the moonlight as he moved. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t,” she lied. Another bit of mud was trickling coldly into her shoe, but
she didn’t want to take her eyes from him to dislodge it; she shifted her weight a
bit, and almost fell as a result. Gods, was she that unsteady? She didn’t dare
look as afraid as she felt. The Hunter was attracted to fear. “It just seemed so . .
. quiet.”
“The night can be like that.” He walked toward her slowly, casually, his
languid grace mesmeric in the moonlight. A tall man, lean, with delicate features,
arresting eyes. Unadorned, save for a thin gold band that held back his hair from
his face, the latter cut shoulder-length in a style several years out of date. His
eyes were pale gray flecked with silver, and in the moonlight they flashed like
diamonds. She sensed a cold amusement lurking just beneath his surface.
“Forgive me,” he repeated, “but a young woman out alone? It seemed unusual.
Are you all right?”
It occurred to her that she hadn’t heard him approach, that in the midst of
all this sticky mud she should have had some warning - but then his eyes caught
hers, held hers, and suddenly she couldn’t remember why that bothered her.
“Yes,” she stammered. “That is - I think so.” She felt breathless, as if she
had been running instead of walking. She tried to step back, but her body
wouldn’t obey. What kind of Working had he used to bind her?