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

Gwen moved her arm idly, this way and that, and the armlet winked at him, screamed at him. Bond and reminder
and denial, all at once, love sworn in jade-and-silver. And he had only a small whisper-jewel shaped like a tear and
full of fading memories.
He looked up, past a wild crisscross of yellow choker branches, to where the Helleye sat in a murky slice of sky,
looking more tired than hellish, more sorry than satanic. And he shivered. "Let's go back," he told Gwen. "This place
depresses me."
He got no argument. They found a clear spot away from the chokers that pressed around them, a place to spread
the silver-metal tissue of their scoots. Then they rose together for the long flight back to Larteyn.

Chapter 3

They raced again above the mountains, and Dirk did better this time, losing by less than he had before, but the
improvement did not lighten his mood. For most of the weary trip they flew in silence, apart, Gwen meters ahead of
him. Their backs were to the broken, muted Wheel of Fire as they went, and Gwen was a witch figure vague against
the sky and always out of reach. The melancholy of Worlorn's dying forests had seeped into his flesh, and he saw
Gwen through tainted eyes, a doll figure in a suit as faded as despair, her black hair oily with red light. Thoughts
came in a colored chaos as the wind swept past him, and one more often than the others. She was not his Jenny, was
not and never had been.
Twice during their flight Dirk saw-or thought he saw-the jade-and-silver flashing, tormenting, as it had tormented
him in the wood. He forced his eyes away each time and watched black clouds, long and thin, skitter across the
barren, empty sky.
The gray manta aircar and the olive-green war machine were both gone from the rooftop lot when they reached
Larteyn. Only Ruark's yellow teardrop was unmoved. They landed nearby-Dirk's landing yet another clumsy
stumble, now oddly humorless, only stupid-and left the sky-scoots and flight boots out on the roof where they
removed them. Near the tubes they spoke briefly, but Dirk forgot the words even as he said them. Then Gwen left
him.
In his rooms at the base of the tower, Arkin Ruark was waiting patiently. Dirk found a recliner amid the pastel
walls and sculpture and the potted Kimdissi plants. He reclined, wanting only to rest and not to think, but Ruark was
there, chuckling and shaking his head so the white-blond hair danced, thrusting a tall green glass into his hand. Dirk
took it and sat up again. The glass was a fine thin crystal, plain and unadorned except for a fast-melting coat of frost.
He drank, and the wine was very green and cold, incense and cinnamon down his throat.
"Utter tired you look, Dirk," the Kimdissi said after he had found a drink of his own and seated himself with a plop
in a slung-web chair beneath the shadow of a drooping black plant. The spear-shaped leaves cast striped darkness on
his plump, smiling face. He sipped, sucking the drink noisily, and very briefly Dirk despised him.
"A long day," he said noncommittally.
"Truth," Ruark agreed. "A day of Kavalars, heh, always long. Sweet Gwen and Jaantony and last Garsey, enough
to make any day last forever. What do you say?"
Dirk said nothing.
"But now," Ruark said, smiling, "you have seen. Me, I wanted that, for you to see. Before I told you. But I was
sworn to tell you, yes, a swearing to myself. Gwen, she has told me. We talk, you know, as friends, and I have
known her and Jaan too since Avalon. But here we've grown closer. She cannot talk of it easily, ever, but she talks to
me, or has, and I can tell you. Not violating trust. You are the one to know, I think."
The drink sent icy fingers down into his chest, and Dirk felt his weariness lifting. It seemed as if he had been half
asleep, as if Ruark had been talking for a long time and he had missed it all. "What are you talking about?" he said.
"What should I know?"
"Why Gwen needs you," Ruark said. "Why she sent . . . the thing. The red tear. You know. I know. She has told
me."
Suddenly Dirk was quite alert, interested and puzzled. "She told you," he began, then stopped. Gwen had asked
him to wait, and long ago the promise he had made-but it fit. Perhaps he should listen, perhaps it was simply hard for
her to tell him. Ruark would know. Her friend, she had said in the forests, the only one she could talk to. "What?"