"Bujold, Lois McMaster - Chalion 3 - The Hallowed Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bujold Lois McMaster)
Lady Ijada seemed as famished as Ingrey, and the conversation waned for a time. Hallana reopened it with a blunt inquiry of the origin of IngreyТs wolf-affliction. His stomach knotted despite his hunger, but he mumbled through an explanation rather fuller than he had yet confided to Ijada, as well as he could remember the confusing old events. Both women listened raptly. Ingrey was uneasily aware that Bernan, who had taken his plate to a seat on his wooden chest, and Hergi, who snitched bites standing between mopping up after her mistress, were listening, too. But a Temple sorceressТs servants must surely be among the most discreet.
УHad your father had a previous interest in the animal magic of our Old Wealding forebears?Ф Hallana inquired, when he had finished describing the rite.
УNone known to me,Ф Ingrey said. УIt all seemed very sudden.Ф
УWhy attempt such a thing then?Ф said Ijada.
Ingrey shrugged. УAll who knew died or fled. There were none left to tell by the time I recovered enough to ask.Ф His mind shrank from the fragmented memories of those dark, bewildered weeks. Some things were better forgotten.
Hallana chewed, swallowed, and asked, УHow came you to learn to bind your wolf?Ф
Things like that, for example. Ingrey rubbed his tense neck, without relief. УAudarТs ancient law, that those defiled by animal ghosts should be burned alive, had not been carried out within living memory at Birchbeck. Our local divine, who had known me all my life, was anxious that it not be invoked. As it turned out, the Temple inquirer sent to examine the case ruled that since the crime was not of my making, but imposed upon me by persons whose authority I was bound to obey, it would be tantamount to cutting off a manТs hand for being robbed. So I was formally pardoned, my life spared.Ф
Ijada looked up with keen attention at the news of this precedent, her lips parting as if to speak, but then just shook her head.
Ingrey gave her an acknowledging nod, and continued, УStill I could not be left to wander freely. Sometimes I was lucid, you see, but sometimesЕI could not well remember the other times. So our divine set about trying to cure me.Ф
УHow?Ф asked the sorceress.
УPrayer first, of course. Then rituals, what old ones he could find. Some I think he made up new out of bits. None worked. Then he tried exhortations, lectures and sermons, he and his acolytes taking turns for days together. That was the most wearisome part. Then we tried to drive it out by force.Ф
УWe?Ф Hallana cocked an eyebrow.
УIt was notЕnot done against my will. I was desperate by then.Ф
УMm. Yes, I canЕФ She pressed her lips together for a long moment, then said, УWhat form did these wolf-wardings take?Ф
УWe tried everything we could think of that wouldnТt outright cripple me. Starvation, beatings, fire and threats of fire, water. It did not drive out the wolf, but at least I learned to gain ascendance, and my periods of confusion grew shorter.Ф
УUnder those conditions, I should imagine you learned rather quickly.Ф
He glanced up defensively at her dry tone. УIt was clearly working. Anyway, better to be shoved under the Birchbeck till my lungs burst than listen to more sermons all day and night. Our divine held everyone steadfast through the task, though it was hard. It was the last thing he could do for my father, whom he felt he had failed.Ф
Ingrey took a swallow of wine. УAfter some months, I was pronounced well enough to be let out. Castle Birchgrove had been settled on my uncle by then. I was sent on pilgrimage, in hopes of finding some more permanent cure. I was glad enough to go; though as hope failed, and I grew to man size and shed my keepers, my search turned into mere wanderings. When I ran out of money, IТd take what odd tasks came to hand.Ф Anything had seemed better than turning his steps toward home. And thenЕone day, it hadnТt, anymore.
УI met Lord Hetwar when he was on an embassy to the king of Darthaca.Ф His desperate contrivances to win access to the sealmaster, he didnТt think worth recounting. УHe was curious how a Wealding kinsman should be serving strangers so far from home, so I told him my tale. He was not daunted by my wolf and gave me a place in his guard that I might work my way back to my own country. I made myself useful during some incidents on the road, and he was pleased to make my place permanent. I rose in his household thereafter.Ф IngreyТs mouth firmed in tight pride. УBy my merits.Ф
He applied himself to his spiced meat, sopping up the last of its gingery gravy with the innТs good bread. Ijada had stopped eating a little while ago and sat solemn with thought, running her finger around the rim of her empty wine beaker. When she looked up and caught his eye, she managed a wan smile. Hallana waved away her maidТs attempt to feed her a second apple tart, and Hergi rolled up the stained napkin and bundled it away.
The sorceress eyed Ingrey. УFeeling better now?Ф
УYes,Ф he admitted reluctantly.
УDo you have any idea who laid this bridle on you?Ф
УNo. ItТs hard to think about it. It almost bothers me more that I cannot feel it, between fits. I begin to mistrust everything in my mind. As if straining to see the insides of my own eyeballs.Ф He hesitated, marshaled his nerve. УCan you take it off me, Learned?Ф
УThe one thing I might safely do right now,Ф said Hallana, Уis add to the disorder in your spirit. Whether this would break or disrupt the hold of this strange thing Ijada smells upon you, I do not know. I dare attempt nothing more complex. If I were not pregnant, I might tryЧwell, never mind. Yes, yes, I see you, Bernan, please refrain from bursting,Ф she added to the agitated manservant. УIf I do not vent disorder into Lord Ingrey, here, I shall just have to kill some mice, and I like mice.Ф
Ingrey rubbed his tired face. УI am willing to have you try, butЕfetter me, first.Ф
Her brows climbed. УYou think it necessary?Ф
УPrudent.Ф
The sorceressТs servants, at least, seemed greatly in favor of prudence in any form. While Ingrey laid his sword and belt knife against the wall by the door, Bernan opened what proved to be a well-stocked toolbox and rummaged within, producing a couple of lengths of sturdy chain. In consultation with Ingrey, he fitted loops tightly around IngreyТs booted ankles, and secured them with an iron staple and hasp. Ingrey crossed his hands at the wrists and suffered a similar arrangement there, then tested both bindings, twisting and straining. They seemed solid enough. Then he sat on the floor with his back to the window seat and had Bernan bolt the wrist chains to the ankle chains. He felt an utter fool, sitting crouched with his knees up halfway to his ears. His audience looked extremely bemused, but no one demurred.
Learned Hallana heaved herself up out of her seat and waddled over to him. Ijada stood anxiously by her on one side, and Hergi on the other. Hallana shot back her cuffs and laced her fingers together, stretching her hands with a faint crackling pop of the joints. УVery good,Ф she said, in a medically brisk voice all the more sinister for its good cheer, Уtell me if this hurtsЕФ She laid a warm palm across IngreyТs forehead.
The sense of heat flowing from her touch was pleasant for the first few seconds, and he leaned into her hand. But then it grew uncomfortably warm. A disturbing haze clouded his vision. Abruptly, the heat was roaring like a smithyТs furnace across his mind, and he was seeing double. The second image parted from the first: twisted, altered.
The room was still present to his physical senses. But equally present was another place. In itЕ
In it, he was standing nude. Above his heart, his pale flesh puckered, then swelled. The skin burst. From it, a vine, no, a vein, sprouted, and began to wind and twist around him, climbing. He felt a second hot bulge burst on his forehead, and saw the vine-vein wind down from it, blurred by its proximity. Another from his navel, another from his genitals. Their moving tips muttered and dripped blood. His tongue, too, was transformed, pushing out from his mouth, forming into a pulsing tube.
In the material room, his body began to writhe and yank against his chains. Harder. His eyes half rolled back, but still he could see the Learned Hallana leaning nearЧshe scrambled back as he opened his mouth to howl. But between her two glowing hands, held apart, violet fire still roared, spiraling into his horribly transformed mouth.
The long tentacle growing from his tongue flapped and jerked in agony, its unintelligible whisper speeding into a hiss, yet seemed to devour the heat. The other four, mirroring its excitement, continued to mutter and thicken, splashing him with blood. The hot metallic smell and slippery feel of it drove him to distraction. His real body bucked and arched with near bone-cracking force, straining against his chains. His hair rippled, and his genitals engorged and stiffened. He fell sideways, convulsed, began to try to roll and rock himself across the room toward the wall where his sheathed sword leaned.
Ijada had fallen to her knees, mouth open, eyes wide. In the second reality, the leopardess appearedЕ
Its fur was a silken ripple over moving muscle, its claws carved ivory; its brilliant amber eyes flashed with golden lights. It fell upon the writhing veins for all the world like a kitten upon a mess of cords, paws patting, then clawing, then pulling the hissing things toward it to bite at them with its great teeth. The veins lashed like whips of acid, leaving black burns across the elegant, spotted coat, and the leopardess snarled, a rich sound that shook the air, that shook Ingrey to his heart. From somewhere deep inside him, an answering growl arose.
His jaw began to lengthenЕ
No. No! I deny you, wolf-within! He bit down, clenched his teeth. Fought wolf, fought tentacles, fought his body, fought his mind, rocked nearer to his sword. Fight. KillЕsomethingЕeverythingЕ
The tortured chain twisted, an iron link snapping like a stick. His wrists and ankles were still bound, but freed from each other. His body straightened, and then he could writhe and roll, arch and turn. His sword was very close. Panicked feet trampled about him.
His real hands were as slippery with real blood as his second body now was with the strange red spew that flowed out of himself, onto himself. To his utter horror, he began to feel the links slip from his bleeding wrists, over his yanking hands. If he freed his right hand, reached his swordЕsurely none would leave this room alive. Perhaps not even himself.
He would take the yammering manservantТs head first, with a single stroke. Then turn upon the screaming women. Ijada was already on her knees like an executionerТs victim, strands of loosened hair falling forward veiling her face. The whipping sword edge, the pregnant oneЕhis mind shied, denied.
Then howled denial, so fiercely that it turned itself inside out and transmuted to assent. Help them, save her, uphold me, wolf-within! Take of me, takeЕ
His jaw lengthened, his teeth grew into sharp white knives. He began to bite and rip at the veins, snarling and shaking his head as a wolf shakes a rabbit to break its back. The hot blood spurted in his mouth, and he felt the pain of his own bites. He gripped, ripped. Pulled the things out of his body by their gory roots. Then it was no longer inside him, but in front of him, wriggling like some malevolent sea creature brought to the lethal air. He kicked at it with naked, clawed feet. The leopardess pounced, batted, rolled the shrieking red thing across the floor. It was, briefly, alive. Dying.
Then it was gone.
The second vision vanished, or rejoined the first, melting one into another, the leopardess into Ijada, his wolf-jawЧwhere?
His body sagged. He was lying on his back near the door, ankles still bound, bloody hands free. Bernan was standing over him, his face pale as parchment, a short iron crowbar gripped in his shaking hands.
A little silence fell.
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