"Karl Edward Wagner - Cold Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

Because she could perceive the emotional turmoil of others,
Rehhaile shared the distress of that soul she touched. If there was
pain, she tried to soothe it in whatever way she could. For the
people of Demornte nothing could be done. Theirs was an
inconceivable, inconsolable grief, and their emotions were a
burned out wasteland that could never be healed. The people of
Sebbei largely ignored Rehhaile just as they ignored everything
except their bitter memories. Rehhaile lived with them because
there was nothing else she could do. And in sharing their
thoughts, she shared their joyless depression, a steeping in gloom
that almost overwhelmed her own soul.
The rare travellers whom chance brought to Sebbei were a
marvel to her. She bathed in the exotic colors of their thoughts,
finding a universe of unimagined interest and vitality even in the
mind of a stray camel driver. She often tried to persuade these
strangers to take her along with them across the desert, but
inevitably the knowledge of Rehhaile's witch powers would turn
them cold to her appeal.
Then Kane had come to Sebbei, and she had experienced
worlds of sensation unlike any she had ever imagined a human
mind could hold. Kane had been a whirling labyrinth to Rehhaile.
Most of his emotions were altogether alien to her, and many
frightened her with their strangeness. But she had recognized the
awful need for rest that screamed within him—the unaswerable
longing for peace. So she had gone to him to minister to his agony
in the arts that only she knew, and through the months of
companionship they had known, it seemed to Rehhaile that the
pain had somewhat dimmed within Kane.
She tugged a shock of red hair playfully. "Hey! What do you
see down there in the pool?"
His mind was cold, far away. "Ripples on the water like the
passing of years. Man enters life and there is a splash. His life
sends out ripples—small ripples for a little man, huge waves for a
great man—waves that overwhelmed the tiny ripples, wash them
away or remold them. But in the end it is all the same, for the
ripples go out into the lake of life and soon die away, to leave the
lake smooth for new lives or stones."
She scratched lightly with her nails. "Make that up just now?"
 "No. I heard that analogy from the sage Monpelloni whom I
studied under in Churtannts." Rehhaile did not know that
Churtannts had lain in ruins for over a century. "Only I don't fit
the frame he proposed here. I'm something marooned on the
surface of existence. Instead of a short splash, I keep floating
there, struggling about and making an endless succession of
waves."
"I can see you there. Like an old bat fallen in and flopping
about the pool." She dug her nails in deeper. "Come back to me,
Kane! Don't you love me?"
He rolled over so abruptly she nearly slipped off the bank. His
cold blue eyes bored into her blind face. Those eyes—how they