"Moorcock,.Michael-Castle.Brass.02-The.Champion.Of.Garathorm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moorcock Michael)
4. News From Beyond The Mountains 31
5. Reluctantly-A Quest 40
BOOK TWO
A HOMECOMING
1. Ilian of Garathorm 61
2. Outlaws of a Thousand Spheres 70
3. A Meeting in the Forest 77
4. A Pact is Made 81
5. The Raid on Virinthorm 87
6. The Wrong Champion 94
BOOK THREE A LEAVETAKING
1. Sweet Battle, Triumphant Vengeance 103
2. An Impossible Death 110
3. The Swaying of the Balance 117
4. The Soul Gem 121
BOOK ONE
DEPARTURES
1
REPRESENTATIONS AND POSSIBILITIES
Dorian Hawkmoon was no longer mad, yet neither was he healthy. Some said that it was the Black Jewel which had ruined him when it had been torn from his forehead. Others said that the war against the Dark Empire had exhausted him of all the energy he would normally need for a full lifetime and that now there was no more energy left. And some would have it that Hawkmoon mourned for the love of Yisselda, Count Brass's daughter, who had died at the Battle of Londra. In the five years of his madness Hawkmoon had insisted that she was still alive, that she lived with him at Castle Brass and bore him a son and a daughter.
But while causes might be the subject of debate in the inns and taverns of Aigues-Mortes, the town which sheltered beneath the great Castle of Brass, the effects themselves were plain to all.
Hawkmoon brooded.
Hawkmoon tried to recall a dream or an insane fantasy. He tried to remember Yisselda. He tried to remember the names of the children he had imagined while he had been mad. But Yisselda was a shadow and he could see nothing of the children at all. Why did he yearn? Why was he full of such a deep and lasting sense of loss? Why did he sometimes nurse the thought that this, which he experienced now, was madness and that the dream - that of Yisselda and the children - had been the reality?
Hawkmoon no longer knew himself and had lost the inclination, as a result, to communicate with others. He was a ghost. He haunted his own apartments. A sad ghost who could only sob and groan and sigh.
At least he had been proud in his madness, said the townsfolk. At least he had been complete in his delusions.
'He was happier mad."
Hawkmoon would have agreed with such sentiments, had they been expressed to him.
When not in the tower he haunted the room where he had set up his War Tables - high benches on which rested models of cities and castles occupied by thousands of other models of soldiers. In his madness he had commissioned this huge array from Vaiyonn, the local craftsman. To celebrate, he had told Vaiyonn, their victories over the Lords of Granbretan. And represented in painted metal were the Duke of Koln himself, Count Brass, Yisselda, Bowgentle, Huillam D'Averc and Oladahn of the Bulgar Mountains - the heroes of the Kamarg, most of whom had perished at Londra. And here too were models of their old enemies, the Beast Lords - Baron Meliadus in his wolf helm, King Huon in his Throne Globe, Shenegar Trott, Adaz Promp, Asrovak Mikosevaar and his wife, Flana (now the gentle Queen of Granbretan). Dark Empire infantry, cavalry and flyers were ranged against the Guardians of the Kamarg, against the Warriors of Dawn, against the soldiers of a hundred small nations.
And Dorian Hawkmoon would move all these pieces about his vast boards, going through one permutation after another; fighting a thousand versions of the same battle in order to see how a battle which followed it might have changed. And his heavy fingers were often upon the models of his dead friends, and most of all they were upon Yisselda. How could she have been saved? What set of circumstances would have guaranteed her continuing to live?
Sometimes Count Brass would enter the room, his eyes troubled. He would run his fingers through his greying red hair and watch as Hawkmoon, absorbed in his miniature world, brought forward a squadron of cavalry here, drew back a line of infantry there. Hawkmoon either did not notice the presence of Count Brass on these occasions or else he preferred to ignore his old friend until Count Brass would clear his throat or otherwise make it evident that he had come in. Then Hawkmoon would look up, eyes introspective, bleak, unwelcoming, and Count Brass would ask softly after Hawkmoon's health. Hawkmoon would reply curtly that he was well.
Count Brass would nod and say that he was glad.
Hawkmoon would wait impatiently, anxious to get back to his manoeuvrings on his tables, while Count Brass looked around the room, inspected a battle-line or pretended to admire the way Hawkmoon had worked out a particular tactic.
Then Count Brass would say:
'I'm riding to inspect the towers this morning. It's a fine day. Why don't you come with me, Dorian?"
Dorian Hawkmoon would shake his head. 'There are things I have to do here.'
'This?' Count Brass would indicate the wide trestles with a sweep of his hand. 'What point is there? They are dead. It is over. Will your speculation bring them back? You are like some mystic - some warlock - thinking that the facsimile can manipulate that which it imitates. You torture yourself. How can you change the past? Forget. Forget, Duke Dorian.'
But the Duke of Koln would purse his lips as if Count Brass had made a particularly offensive remark, and would turn his attention back to his toys. Count Brass would sigh, try to think of something to add, then he would leave the room.
Hawkmoon's gloom coloured the atmosphere of the whole Castle Brass and there were some who had begun to voice the opinion that, for all that he was a Hero of Londra, the duke should return to Germany and his traditional lands, which he had not visited since his capture, at the Battle of Koln, by the Dark Empire lords. A distant relative now reigned as Chief Citizen there, presiding over a form of elected government which had replaced the monarchy of which Hawkmoon was the last living direct descendant. But it had never entered Hawkmoon's mind that he had any home other than his apartments in Castle Brass.
Even Count Brass would sometimes think, privately, that it would have been better for Hawkmoon if he had been killed at the Battle of Londra. Killed at the same time that Yisselda had been killed.
And so the sad months passed, all heavy with sorrow and useless speculation, as Hawkmoon's mind closed still more firmly around its single obsession until he hardly remembered to take sustenance or to sleep.
Count Brass and his old companion, Captain Josef Vedla, debated the problem between themselves, but could arrive at no solution.
For hours they would sit in comfortable chairs on either side of the great fireplace in the main hall of Castle Brass, drinking the local wine and discussing Hawkmoon's melancholia. Both were soldiers and Count Brass had been a statesman, but neither had the vocabulary to cope with such matters as sickness of the soul.
'More exercise would help,' said Captain Josef Vedla one evening. 'The mind will rot in a body which does nothing. It is well known.'
'Aye - a healthy mind knows as much. But how do you convince a sick mind of the virtues of such action?' Count Brass replied. 'The longer he remains in his apartments, playing with those damned models, the worse he gets. And the worse he gets, the harder it is for us to approach him on a rational level. The seasons mean nothing to him. Night is no different to day for him. I shudder when I think what must be happening in his head!'
Captain Vedla nodded. 'He was never one for overmuch introspection before. He was a man. A soldier. Intelligent without being, as it were, too intelligent. He was practical. Sometimes it seems to me that he is a different man entirely now. As if the old Hawkmoon's soul was driven from its body by the terrors of the Black Jewel and a new soul entered to fill the place!'
Count Brass smiled at this. 'You're becoming fanciful, captain, in your old age. You praise the old Hawkmoon for being practical - and then make a suggestion like that!'
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