"Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time 08 - The Path of Daggers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

THE PATH OF DAGGERS Copyright © 1998 by Robert Jordan

For Harriet
My light, my life, my heart, forever

Who would sup with the mighty must climb the path of daggers.
—Anonymous notation found inked in the margin of a manuscript history (believed to date to the time of Arthur
Hawkwing) of the last days of the Tovan Conclaves

On the heights, all paths are paved with daggers. —Old Seanchan saying

Prologue: Deceptive Appearances


Ethenielle had seen mountains lower than these misnamed Black Hills, great lopsided heaps of half-buried boulders,
webbed with steep twisting passes. A number of those passes would have given a goat pause. You could travel three
days through drought-withered forests and brown-grassed meadows without seeing a single sign of human habitation,
then suddenly find yourself within half a day of seven or eight tiny villages, all ignorant of the world. The Black Hills
were a rugged place for farmers, away from the trade routes, and harsher now than usual. A gaunt leopard that should
have vanished at the sight of men watched from a steep slope, not forty paces away, as she rode past with her armored
escort. Westward, vultures wheeled patient circles like an omen. Not a cloud marred the blood-red sun, yet there were
clouds of a sort. When the warm wind blew, it raised walls of dust.
With fifty of her best men at her heels, Ethenielle rode unconcernedly, and unhurriedly. Unlike her near-legendary
ancestor Surasa, she had no illusion that the weather would heed her wishes just because she held the Throne of the
Clouds, while as for haste. . . . Their carefully coded, closely guarded letters had agreed on the order of march, and that
had been determined by each person's need to travel without attracting notice. Not an easy task. Some had thought it
impossible.
Frowning, she considered the luck that had let her come this far without having to kill anyone, avoiding those flyspeck
villages even when it meant days added to the journey. The few Ogier stedding presented no problem— Ogier paid
little heed to what happened among humans, most times, and less than usual of late, it seemed— but the villages. . . .
They were too small to hold eyes-and-ears for the White Tower, or for this fellow who claimed to be the Dragon
Reborn— perhaps he was; she could not decide which way would be worse— too small, yet peddlers did pass through,
eventually. Peddlers carried as much gossip as trade goods, and they spoke to people who spoke to other people, rumor
flowing like an ever-branching river, through the Black-Hills and into the world outside. With a few words, a single
shepherd who had escaped notice could light a signal fire seen five hundred leagues off. The sort of signal fire that set
woods and grasslands aflame. And cities, maybe. Nations.
"Did I make the right choice, Serailla?" Vexed at herself, Ethenielle grimaced. She might not be a girl any longer, but
her few gray hairs hardly counted her old enough to let her mindless tongue flap in the breeze. The decision was made.
It had been on her mind, though. Light's truth, she was not so unconcerned as she wanted to be.
Ethenielle's First Councilor heeled her dun mare closer to the Queen's sleek black gelding. Round face placid, dark
eyes considering, Lady Serailla could have been a farmwife suddenly stuck into a noblewoman's riding dress, but the
mind behind those plain, sweaty features was as sharp as any Aes Sedai's. "The other choices only carried different
risks, not lesser," she said smoothly. Stout yet as graceful in her saddle as she was at dancing, Serailla was always
smooth. Not oily, or false; just completely unflappable. "Whatever the truth, Majesty, the White Tower appears to be
paralyzed as well as shattered. You could have sat watching the Blight while the world crumbled behind you. You
could have if you were someone else."
The simple need to act. Was that what had brought her here? Well, if the White Tower would not or could not do what
had to be done, then someone must. What good to guard the Blight if the world did crumble behind her?
Ethenielle looked to the slender man riding at her other side, white streaks at his temples giving him a supercilious air,
the ornately sheathed Sword of Kirukan resting in the crook of one arm. It was called the Sword of Kirukan, at any