"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

There was awe and wonder on every face as she approached them,

open joy that she should be gracing them with her presence. A few were actually weeping, as though
they'd never thought to see such a day. It occurred to Toby that he should feel jealous, but the
emotions beating on the air in the crowded bar were just too big, too overwhelming to be any
threat to the simple everyday feelings in his heart. Everyone here clearly loved her, but as
they'd love a Pope, or a saint. They worshipped what she was, rather than who, and Toby had to


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wonder if perhaps he would worship her too, once he finally found out what Gayle really was.
It wasn't a comfortable thought.
Gayle advanced slowly, with Toby all but forgotten behind her, and people came forward to greet
her in quiet, reverential tones. Some tried to kiss her hand, or the hem of her dress, but she
wouldn't let them. She was polite but firm, and no one tried to argue with her. Some looked
curiously at Toby, obviously wondering what the hell a scruff like him was doing with someone like
her, but no one said anything. Which was just as well, as right then Toby was damned if he could
have justified his presence. It felt a bit like he'd wandered into a urinal at the Vatican, and
looked round to find the Pope splashing his boots beside him. Whoever or whatever Gayle might be,
Toby just knew he was well out of his depth.
But then, that was true with most women, where Toby was concerned, and especially with Gayle. It
was a bit like finding out that your blind date was actually Madonna.
Finally Gayle shooed away the last of her admirers, and drew up a chair opposite Carys Galloway,
still sitting in her dark corner under the stairs. Toby pulled up another chair, and sat down
beside Gayle. She didn't look at him. Behind them, the buzz of conversation in the bar slowly
started up again.
'This is why I prefer to stay real,' said Gayle. 'I love them, of course, I care for them all; but
I do hate it when they get so clingy. Carys, talk to me. Why did you presume to send love's young
dream here to see me? What's going on that I don't know about? And why am I so absolutely sure
that I'm not going to like the answers you're about to give me?'
'We can't all bury our heads in the sand,' said Carys, utterly unmoved by Gayle's presence or the
roughness of her manner. 'Some of us take our responsibilities seriously. I've never understood
why you limit yourself to being human, when you could be so much more. When you could be doing so
much more. It's perverse. If I had your power, your capacities...'
'You'd interfere far too much,' Gayle said flatly. 'It's a human world now, so let the humans run
it. I have abdicated.' She looked sharply at Toby, and he almost jumped in his seat. Her voice was
calm and cool as she spoke to him, as though he was a stranger. 'The trouble with the Waking
Beauty is that she could have been so much more, but she never had the nerve. Could have been a
repository for a whole people's history, but settled for being a gossip and an agony aunt. Even I
don't know how old she really is. Certainly she's been around far longer than any human has a
right to be. She lives here, in Bradford-on-Avon, because more ley lines cross in this place than
in any other part of the British Isles. She subsists on the tiny amount of energy she's able to
draw from the lines of power, like a happy little parasite.'
'Ley lines,' Toby said tentatively. 'I've heard of those. Invisible lines of force that criss-
cross Britain, following the ancient roads?'
'The roads follow the ley lines,' said Carys. The lines are older than man, older than any
civilisation. They were here before us, and they'll still be here when we are all gone. And the
power they carry dwarfs anything your modern science could produce. It's because so many lines