"George R. R. Martin - Dying of the Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

semi-pariahs, villains of Kavalar history, charismatic leaders whose causes had lost and then been subjected to
generations of oral abuse. So Jaan sort of shoved their names together and juggled the sounds around until the
product looked like an old family name imported from Earth. The highbonds accepted it without a thought. It was
only his chosen name, the least important part of his identity. It's the part that comes last, after all."
She frowned. "Which is the point of this whole story. Jaantony Ironjade Vikary came to Avalon, and he was
mostly Jaantony Ironjade. Except that Avalon is a surname-conscious world, and there he found that he was mostly
Vikary. The Academy registered him under that name, and his instructors called him Vikary, and it was a name he
had to live by for two years. Pretty soon he became Jaan Vikary, in addition to being Jaantony Ironjade. I think he
rather liked it. He's always tried to stay Jaan Vikary ever since, although it was not easy after we returned to
High.Kavalaan. To the Kavalars he'll always be Jaantony."
"Where did he get all the other names?" Dirk found himself asking, despite himself. Her story fascinated him and
seemed to offer new insights into what Jaan Vikary had said that dawn, up on the roof.
"When we were married, he brought me back to Ironjade with him and became a bighbond, automatically a
member of the highbond council," she said. "That put a 'high' in his name, and gave him the right to own private
property independent of the holdfast, and to make religious sacrifices, and to lead his kethi, his holdfast-brothers, in
war. So he got a war name, sort of a rank, and a religious name. Once those kinds of names were very important. Not
so much anymore, but the customs linger."
"I see," Dirk said, although he didn't, not completely. The Kavalars seemed to set unusually great store on
marriage. "What has this got to do with us?"
"A lot," Gwen said, becoming very serious again. "When Jaan reached Avalon and people started calling him
Vikary, he changed. He became Vikary, a hybrid of his own iconoclastic idols. That's what names can do, Dirk. And
that was our downfall. I loved you, yes. Much. I loved you, and you loved Jenny."
"You were Jenny!"
"Yes, no. Your Jenny, your Guinevere. You said that, over and over again. You called me those names as often as
you called me Gwen, but you were right. They were your names. Yes, I liked it. What did I know of names or
naming? Jenny is pretty enough, and Guinevere has the glow of legend. What did I know?
"But I learned, even if I never had the words for it. The problem was that you loved Jenny-only Jenny wasn't me.
Based on me, perhaps, but mostly she was a phantom, a wish, a dream you'd fashioned all on your own. You
fastened her on me and loved us both, and in time I found myself becoming Jenny. Give a thing a name and it will
somehow come to be. All truth is in naming, and all lies as well, for nothing distorts like a false name can, a false
name that changes the reality as well as the seeming.
"I wanted you to love me, not her. I was Gwen Delvano, and I wanted to be the best Gwen Delvano I could be, but
still myself. I fought being Jenny, and you fought to keep her, and never understood. And that was why I left you."
She finished in a cool, even voice, her face a mask, and then she looked away from him again.
 And he did understand, at last. For seven years he never had, but now, briefly, he grasped it. This then, he thought,
was why she sent the whisperjewel. Not to call him back, no, not that. But to tell him, finally, why she had sent him
away. And there was a sense to it. His anger had suddenly faded into weary melancholy. Sand ran cold and unheeded
through his fingers.
She saw his face, and her voice softened. "I'm sorry, Dirk," she said. "But you called me Jenny again. And I had to
tell you the truth. I have never forgotten, and I can't imagine you have, and I've thought of it over the years. It was so
good, when it was good, I kept thinking. How could it go wrong? It scared me, Dirk.
It really scared me. I thought, If we could go wrong, Dirk and I, then nothing is sure, nothing can be counted on.
That fear crippled me for two years. But finally, with Jaan, I understood. And now it came out, the answer I found.
I'm sorry if it is a painful answer for you. But you had to know."
"I had hoped . . ."
"Don't," she warned. "Don't start it, Dirk. Not again. Don't even try. We're over. Recognize that. We'll kill
ourselves if we try."
He sighed, blocked at every turn. Through all the long conversation, he had never even touched her. He felt
helpless. "I take it that Jaan doesn't call you Jenny?" he asked finally with a bitter smile.
Gwen laughed. "No. As a Kavalar, I have a secret name, and he calls me that. But I've taken the name, so there's