"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 01 - The Black Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

tears he feared to shed—feared, because once they began, he was not certain he would be able to stop
them. Tears for Gesten—and for Skan. Wherever he was.
Waiting out in the darkness for someone who wasn't going to come home wasn't going to
accomplish anything. The war went on no matter who grieved. Amberdrake, like so many Kaled'a'in, had
long been thinking of the war as a being of its own, with its own needs, plans, and hungers. Those who
chose to obey its will, and those who found themselves swept along in its path, had to go on living and
pursuing their dreams, even if it did feel as if they were constantly trying to bail a leaky boat with their
bare hands. The skills Amberdrake possessed would be needed regardless of whether the war raged on
or ebbed; people would always feel pain, loneliness, instability, doubt, strain. He had long ago resigned
himself to the responsibility of caring for those who needed him. No—caring for those who needed his
skills. They didn't necessarily need him, they needed his skills. It was that realization, too, that chilled his
heart and had caused him to leave the smoky-white pyre.
Gesten had only his duties to Amberdrake and to the Black Gryphon, and Amberdrake could do
without him for a while. Gesten clearly intended to keep his watch no matter what Amberdrake required
of him. Amberdrake, on the other hand, always had his duties. And right now, he felt terribly, horribly
lonely. After all, once you've given up a large slice of yourself to someone and they're suddenly gone
—how else could you feel? He'd never had a magical bond to the Black Gryphon, nothing that would let
him know with absolute certainty if Skandranon were alive or dead. So he only had his reasoning and the
known facts, and they pointed to the loss of a friend. A trusted one.
He neared the camp.
He entered the lighted areas of the camp, fixed a frozen, slight smile on his face, and checked his
walk to ensure it conveyed the proper confidence and the other more subtle cues of his profession. There
were few folk awake at this time of the night—or rather, morning—but those few needed to be reassured
if they saw him. A frowning Healer was a bad omen; an unhappy kestra'chern often meant that one of his
clients had confided something so grave that it threatened the kestra'chern's proverbial stability—and
since Amberdrake was both those things, anything other than serenity would add fuel to the rumors
already flooding the camp. And for Amberdrake to be upset would further inflame the rumors. As long
as he was in a public place, he could never forget who and what he was. Even though his face ached and
felt stiff from the pleasant expression he had forced upon it.
Urtho kept an orderly camp; with tents laid out in rows, every fifth row lighted by a lantern on a
perching-pole, anyone who happened to see Amberdrake would be able to read his expression clearly.
It must look as if nothing had changed in the past few hours.
And yet, before he could do anyone else any good, he was going to have to deal with his own
sorrows, his own fears and pain. He knew that as well as he knew the rest of it.
He strode into the Healers' bivouac, his steps faltering only once. There was a distant part of him
that felt ashamed at that little faltering step. He attributed that feeling to his tumultuous state of
mind—hadn't he soothingly spoken to others that there was no shame in such things? Still....
Help was not far off—if he asked for it. It was his right, of course. He was entitled to counsel and
Healing, and all of the skills of his own profession he wished. He had taken comfort in such ways before
and had given it many times. And though a small internal voice might echo words of weakness from the
walls of his mind—tell him to just hold it in, not to succumb to the strain, he was not too proud to ask for
that help. Not at this point, not when he was a mass of raw nerves and trembling on the edge of a
breakdown. He had seen the signs of such things too often not to recognize them in himself.
In tents and shacks he passed, small lanterns or lightstones illuminated solitary figures. They carved
surgical instruments or sewed torn clothing and bandages. The surreal acoustics of the still night made an
old Healer's work-time whistling seem louder than it should be, as he cut and assembled arm slings by
lantern light, apparently oblivious to the world outside his opened tent. On perches by the surgery tent,
messenger-birds slept with their heads tucked under soft-feathered wings, with kyree sleeping soundly in
front of them. The soft jingling of hanging harness and tackle sounded like windchimes from a tranquil
garden. How odd that such poignant moments could still occur even in the middle of upheavals.