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

thought with wonder. The Old Knowledge. Tendrils of fae seeped from the
darkness to wind themselves about her, delicate strands of velvet purple that
were drawn to her warmth like moths to flame. She shivered as they brushed
against her, sensing the wild power within them. All about her the land was
alive, with a thousand dark hues that the night had made its own: fragile fae, as
he had said, nearly invisible in the moonlight - but strong in the shadows, and
hauntingly beautiful. She tried to move toward it, to come closer to a tangle of
those delicate, almost unseeable threads, but his hand on her arm stopped her,
and a single word bound her. Dangerous, he cautioned; language without sound.
For you.
 “Yes,” she whispered. “But oh, please . . .”
Music filled the cool night air, and she shut her eyes in order to savor it. A
music unlike any other she had ever heard, delicate as the fae itself, formless as
the night that bound it. Jeweled notes that entered her not through her ears, as
human music might, but through her hair and her skin and even her clothing;
music that she took into her lungs with every breath, breathing out her own
silver notes to add to their harmony. Is this what the night is? she wondered.
Truly?
She felt, rather than saw, a faint smile cross his face. “For those who know
how to look.”
I want to stay here.
He laughed, softly. You can’t.
Why? she demanded.
Child of the sunlight! Heir to life and all that it implies. There’s beauty in that
world, too, although of a cruder sort. Are you really ready to give all that up? To
give up the light? Forever?
The darkness withdrew into two obsidian pinpoints, surrounded by fields of
cracked ice. His eyes. The dark fae was alive in there, too, and a music that was
far more ominous - and darkly seductive. She nearly cried out, for wanting it.
“Quiet, child.” His voice was nearly human again.
“The cost of that’s too high, for you. But I know the temptation well.”
“It’s gone . . .”
“It’ll never be gone for you. Not entirely. Look.”
And though the night was dark again, and silent, slit was aware of
something more. A tremor of deepest put pie, at the edges of her vision. Faint
echoes of a music that came and went with the breeze. “So beautiful.”
“You avoided it.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of the darkness? Of its creatures? Such beings aren’t kept at bay by a
simple closed door, child, or by lamplight. If they want to know of you, they do,
and if they want to have you, they certainly will. Your charmed wards are
enough to keep lesser demons at bay, and against the greater ones mere
lamplight and human company won’t help you at all. So what’s the point in
locking yourself away from half the wonders of the world?”
“None,” she breathed, and she knew it to be the truth
He took her arm and applied gentle pressure, forward. It took her a moment
to realize what he meant by it and even then the gesture seemed strange. Too
human. for this extrahuman night. In silence she let him walk her toward her
home, his footsteps utterly silent beside her own. What else did she expect? All
about them shadows danced, alien shapes given life by the moonlight. She