"Springer, Nancy - Book Of The Isle 05 - Golden Swan v1 0.rtf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

There was more, about mortal's knell and the sad and flightless song of the dawn bird. Such a melancholy ditty.
The fire had burned down to ashes, and there seemed to be no more that either of us could say. Dair lay not in his blanket but on it, dozing, his limbs stretched out to one side, the attitude lupine even though he was in his human form. I sat and thought of the night bird. A small, dust-colored bird with a sweet, rippling, seductive voice.
"She should be flying with the flocks of Ascalonia," Frain burst out. He meant Shamarra, of course. I looked at him in some surprise.
"Can she not fly?"
"Yes, I suppose. But the proper form of the immortal is the swan, like the swan that always graced her lake."
"It is late," I said quietly. I got my blanket and swaddled myself in it somewhat, eased myself down to the ground. My poor, stout body, it was not meant for all this walking and sleeping on stones. It ached. It longed to be something else, something strong and naked and free… The moon was on the wax, and the wild thing or the breath of the goddess was stirring in me. The night bird flew through my thoughts.
It took a long time for Frain to go to sleep. When he was still at last, I sat up cautiously to find Dair sitting up and looking back at me. His ears twitched, listening to the night noises; human ears, they moved on his human head, and his nostrils moved as well. He smiled at me. He smiled very seldom, and I was glad, for it was a disconcerting rictus.
Shall we go together? "he asked.
"All right," I whispered, "but we must stay close to -Frain. There might be danger on the prowl for him."
You do not have to tell me that, he growled.
True enough, and enough of motherly nonsense. Wings flapped within my mind, and in a moment I was myself in flight, a small bird darting effortlessly upward, all aches forgotten. I perched on the high branch of a wych elm tree to look down on our campsite. A fluffy gray owl noiselessly swooped up and settled beside me.
Have you ever flown before? I asked Dair.
No: It is delightful. Do you think we are going to be able to change back in time?
The night bird did not know and did not care. Her thoughts were dark, her nature treacherous and musical in the minor key, selfish and sad and lovely as decadence always is. The owl was a night creature also, his reputation for wisdom perhaps deserved. Dair proved less of a fool than I that night. But of that more in a moment.
We tilted our wings and fell into flight. We flew for the joy of it, circling above Frain's sleeping form, wheeling and gliding, till dawn. There is nothing like coming out of human self to refresh one. No sleep can match it. Out of self… Frain stirred below me, and I did not care what he would think when he awoke, poor fool. To fly, just to let instinct bear one up, so easy— So easy to die in an instant!
A falcon had appeared above me, diving down out of the dawn sky. I flashed toward the cover of an evergreen oak, but he was nearly on me, his talons reaching for my stubby tailfeathers. How had he gotten so close without my seeing him? Desperate, I plummeted to the ground and took refuge in my human form. Instead of veering off in consternation as I had expected it to, the raptor settled lightly beside me and became Dair. And he gave me that unnerving grin of his again. s
"Dair-, you beggar!" I exploded at him. "What do you mean! You frightened me half to death!"
What of Frain, if he had seen you? Dair growled back. I have hurt him enough.
Frain sat up, startled and sleepy. He blinked as he focused on us and identified us as the source of the uproar. "What in the world?" he exclaimed. We were naked, after all.
"Nothing." I swallowed my wrath, feeling suddenly sheepish as modesty and compunction returned to me. I reached hastily for my clothes, conscious of my thick body. "It is nothing at all, really," I told Frain vaguely. "We were put flying…"
"On your besom? What do you use to rub yourself with?" He got up, laughing hollowly to himself.
"Now, stop that," I said, annoyed. "We were being birds, that is all."
"Indeed." He was still laughing softly, as if life were momentarily too funny for him to bear. He, earthbound with his crippled arm, he who dreamed of flight—cringing at the thought, I grew glad that he was laughing. I wondered how much anger the laughter hid.
"Do you want anything to eat?" I asked him, solicitous.
"Who could eat?" he chortled. "Let us be getting on."
We broke camp and trudged off eastward. It was mid-morning before Frain seemed entirely his sober self again and we stopped for a bite of bread.
"This Shamarra," I said to him. "You say she is an aspect of the death goddess."
"Yes. In a very real way I seek death." He said it baldly, with no great drama.
"She must be rather heartless," I ventured.
"Yes." Oh, the things he was not telling me!
"The form of the night bird," I said, "it suits her."
"Yes. I know it."
He was maddening. "Would it be too dense of me," I inquired with some asperity, "to ask why you are not content to just let her be?"
He seemed startled by the question. "Well, she turned friendlier toward the last," he said hesitantly.
I was losing my temper. "Frain," I warned.
"I love her," he declared.
"Frain, I could scream!" I shouted at him. "The real reason, if you please!"
He kept silence for some time. I thought at first that he was sulking, but looking at him I could see that he was thinking, struggling with truth. My ill humor vanished. I waited.
"This condition of mine," he said softly at last. -
"Yes?"
"I doomed it -on myself when I set foot hi her lake. The passions I felt then will not fade. They are all still mine, still and forevermore. That is why I have not been able to grow—or change—"
I gaped at him. He met my gaze quite levelly, the lines of his face tight and grim.
"But—she let you?" I gasped.
"She let me. She wanted a faithful pet, I think." His words were calm and bleak. "I am in thrall," he-said.
Chapter Four
We passed out of Tokar and through some other countries and into nameless lands, until not only the boundaries of kingdoms but even the nature of the earth changed. We came to the end of forest and onto something different, some sort of upland plateau. From a high, blunt promontory at the edge of it we looked out across a muddle of rocky hills, mostly sheep pasturage, with stone-walled garths on the summits. To me the outlook was bleak. We had not run afoul of brigands, not yet; Dair had seen to that. But we were out of food, and there would be no more wild grapes to eat, and no more deer for Dair's hunting.
I fingered my modest gold necklace and sighed. By night I could be a prowling wildcat under a full moon, or the wisent with wicked curving horn, or the she-wolf, or even the witch Frain had laughingly accused me of being. But by day I was very much the woman, and I hated to barter away the jewelry my parents had left me. Still, when one is on one's way to the Source there seems little sense in holding anything back.
"Let us go there," I said, pointing out the most prosperous-looking garth. We strode oft single file down the slope.
We spent the night by a warm hearth. They were hospitable, those lonesome garth folk, even toward so oddly assorted a trio of strangers. In the morning we left with a goodly supply of bread, cheese, apples and dried mutton. And without my necklace, of course.
And so it went until nearly midwinter. It did not snow, we were too far south for that, but we were often glad of the shelter of a stone homestead those chill nights, and I traded away my bracelet and ring. Oh, we met with the occasional rebuff, with hostility from time to time, even with danger—there were rough folk on those moorlands, too, it turned out. But what mostly happened was steady, silent days of walking and evenings of quiet talk, the bond between Dair and Frain and my motherly affection for the pair of them, land aches and blisters, and grumbling on rainy days, and a feeling that each of us could depend on the others. Even Frain, our cripple—Dair and I were protective of him, and he accepted it; he had never had proper mothering, I think. But there was far more to him than there seemed to be.