"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 09 - The Red Wyvern" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

‘Oh come now, surely you can think of a better boon than that! Something that would please you and
bring you joy.’

‘Well, then, I love with all my heart the Lady Jehan, but I’m far beneath her notice.’

‘That’s a better wishing.’ The fellow smiled in a lazy sort of way. ‘Very well, Domnall Breich. You shall
have the Lady Jehan for your own true wife. In return, I ask only this, that you tell no one of what you
see here tonight except for your son, when he’s reached thirteen winters of age.’ The fellow suddenly
frowned and drew his hands out from the folds of his cloak. For a moment he made a show of counting
on his fingers. ‘Well, thirteen will do. Numbers and time mean naught to the likes of me. Whenever you
think him grown to a man, anyway, tell him what you will see here tonight, but tell no one else.’
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‘Good sir, I can promise you that with all my heart. No one but his own son would believe a man who
told of things like this.’

‘Done, then!’ The fellow raised his hands and clapped them three times together. Turn your back on the
tree, Domnall Breich, and tell me what you see.’

Domnall turned and peered through the thin fall of snow. Not far away stood a tangle of ordinary trees,
dark against the greater dark of night, and beyond them a stretch of water, wrinkled and forbidding in the
gleam of magical fire.

‘The shore of the loch. Has it been here all this while, and I never saw it?’

‘It hasn’t. It’s the shore of a loch, sure enough, but’s not the one you were hoping to find. Do you see
the rocks piled up, and one bigger than all the rest?’

‘I do.’

‘On top of the largest rock you’ll find chained a silver horn. Take it and blow, and you’ll have shelter
against the night.’

‘My thanks. And since I can’t ask God to bless you, I’ll wish you luck instead.’

‘My thanks to you, then. Oh, wait. Face me again.’

When he did so, the fellow reached out a ringed hand and laid one finger on Domnall’s lips.

‘Till sunset tomorrow you’ll speak and be understood and hear and understand among the folk of the
isle, but after that, their way of speaking will mean naught to you. Now you’d best hurry. The snow’s
coming down.’

The fellow disappeared as suddenly as a blown candle flame. With a brief prayer to all the saints at
once, Domnall hurried over to the edge of the loch - not Ness, sure enough, but a narrow finger of water
that came right up to his feet rather than lying below at the foot of a steep climb down. By the light of the
magical tree he found the scatter of boulders. The silver horn lay waiting, chained with silver as well.