"Bradley,.Marion.Zimmer.-.Darkover.-.Clingfire.3.-.2004.-.A.Flame.In.Hali" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bradley Marion Zimmer)

That did not matter, it was enough to simply sit here ... to lie here, on the floor, wedged in between table leg and wall, his body curled around a knot of blissful silence.
Voices reached him, but he waved them away, Let me sleep. They went away for a time, then returned, more annoying and insistent than before.
"On your feet, friend . . ." The voice-voices-had a peculiar echoing quality. "Closing time. Do you have a place to go?"
Then he was upright, hard hands digging into his armpits, the world tilting and whirling about him. His legs moved beneath him as if they belonged to someone else.
"Lea' me alone ..." So warm, so still.
"I'll take care of him." The voice was ale-roughened but familiar-the man who'd bought the round of drinks.
"How 'bout another?" Eduin asked.
"Better take him to the King's shelters," the man said, placing a hand on Eduin's shoulder. "Out of the cold, just the place-"
No! There would be Comyn youth serving as cadets, City Guard everywhere. He'd be recognized-
Eduin jerked away. "Don' need no charity. Not from you, not from no stink-no king!"
"Easy there, friend. We're just trying to help-"
"I can get home-jus' fine-on my own." Eduin rushed for the door before they could stop him.
A blast of cold, damp air shocked across his face. He fought to keep on his feet, staggered a handful of steps, then collapsed in a tangle. He hauled himself upright, twisting back toward the ale house. A man stood silhouetted against the brightness inside.
Then the rectangle of yellow light winked into shadow.
Eduin saw only a few lights, the faint flickering of candles from windows high above, a single torch burning low in the next block. No moons shone, nor any stars. A wind, ice-tipped, sprang up, threatening worse to come.
Find someplace dry and out of the wind, he urged himself. Then sleep, just sleep ...
Half-crawling, half-stumbling, he worked his way toward the guttering torch. The few doors he passed were shut tight. He searched for an archway, an alcove, anything that would provide a little shelter. None appeared, but now it did not really matter. The night was not so very cold. The wind was no more than a little breeze. His body came to rest, all of its own, under an overhanging eave. From the edge of his vision, he watched the torchlight sputter and go out.
Darkness took him.
"You there!" Hands dug into his arms, hauling him upright.
He squinted at the unexpected brilliance. A torch-ж no, several-no, one-lit the night. One man held it while another dragged him to his feet. He gasped, inhaling the acid reek of vomit. The wind blew in cruel gusts, slicing through his clothing, burning on his skin.
"Pah!" the man who held him snorted in disgust. "He stinks to heaven!"
"He's no gutter rat." The second man moved closer. "Look at his clothes."
Eduin noticed the badges on their cloaks, the swords ready to hand, the polished boots, the precisely trimmed hair.
City Guards. By Zandru's seventh hell!
"He's just some poor devil who drank more than he could hold," the second man said, lifting the torch still higher. "We'll take him inside until he sobers up."
"Aye," replied the first. He twisted Eduin around and pushed him in the direction of the Guard headquarters.
In an instant of reflex terror, Eduin's muscles locked.
The Guard wasn't expecting resistance. "Here now, you can't go wandering off on a night like this. You'll freeze to death!"
Eduin turned and ran. Somehow, his legs obeyed him. He burst into a pounding run, heading for the shadowed alleys. His only hope was flight, and he clung to it as a lifeline. Years of finding cover, of skulking and hiding, guided him. The Guards shouted for him to stop, but he kept on, staggering around corners, hardly feeling the bite of the wind or the impact when he slammed into a wall.
Finally, he came to rest at the end of a twisted series of lanes and alleys, some buried to knee-height in refuse and filthy snow. He leaned against a patchstone wall, lungs heaving, ears straining. Moments ticked by, marked by the slowing of his pulse. He heard only normal night sounds, the creak of timbers, the shuffle of a dog nosing in the garbage, the snort and shift of a horse rousing from sleep.
In only a few minutes, the warmth his body generated during that brief flight faded. He began shivering; he had no cloak or any protection. The wind howled down the alley, eerily like the cry of a giant banshee bird of the heights. It seemed to be hunting him.
The Guards were right. He would die out here, on a night like this.
He was still drunk enough to keep off the worst of the compulsion, but not enough to completely befuddle his wits. Leaving the tomblike chill of the alley, he found his bearings. He was not far from the stables where he'd worked. With a little luck, he would be able to sneak inside.
The side door creaked as he eased it open, but no alarm sounded. The air was warm, laden with the smells of fodder and animals. One of the horses startled awake, and two others shifted uneasily in their pens as he passed. Feeling his way through the darkness, he located
one of the stalls he'd cleaned out earlier. The horse was an old white mare, sweet and docile. She nickered softly as he piled the cleanest straw in one corner and buried himself in it.
Gray, filtered light filled the inside of the barn. Horses stamped and buckets rattled. Eduin's head throbbed and his mouth felt thick and sour. His shirt was mostly dry, but smelled of ale and vomit. He cleaned himself as best he could with handfuls of clean straw. The white mare watched him with gentle dark eyes as he hauled himself to his feet and went outside.
Shivering, he turned to look back toward the heart of the city. Tall buildings and stately towers, the citadel of Hastur Castle, rose above the humbler dwellings. He thought of the life he had lost, of warm, bright rooms, the keen exhilaration of using his laran, of the intimacy and comradeship of the circle. Gone, gone forever.
Compulsion roused, gnawed at him like a wild beast. Soon there would be nothing left of him. It would eat him up, heart and dreams and will. As if in response, thirst clawed his throat.
Drink ...ah, yes... murmured the seductive thought, drink and forget....
And wake to yet another morning of pounding in his head and bile in his mouth, drinking again as the compulsion pressed in on him, each bout longer and sicker, each time with less hope, to the shambling, sodden creature he had made of himself. This time there would be no gentle stranger to drag him in from the storm, no dream-
No dream.
He did not want to die. Especially, he did not want to die alone. He did not know what to do. He only knew that he could not continue the way he had before.
The dream itself had vanished, swept away by the pulse and throb of pain. But he had dreamed it. That much he must believe, or he would surely go mad.
Not for an instant did he believe the vision to be true. It was simply an illusion born out of his own inner longing. Saravio must have induced in him a state of extraordinary euphoria or suggestibility, having learned the technique during his training at Cedestri Tower. Perhaps the kirian played a part.
The dream ... and then the blessed space of freedom. He must find out how it had been done.
3
Eduin paused in front of the weathered door, one hand raised. It was folly to return, like a moth to a candle, but some deep, wordless impulse had defeated all reason, overridden all instinct for survival. Perhaps after so many years of having no hope, only the long dark descent into despair, he could not turn away from that single luminous memory of chieri dancing beneath the moons, of himself being one of them.
Before Eduin could knock, however, the door swung open. Saravio stood there, hood slightly askew over his red hair, as if he had just pulled it on. He grabbed the front of Eduin's jacket, still flecked with bits of straw, and pulled him inside.
"Did they follow you?"
"No one follows me."