"Chalker, Jack L - Demons of the Dancing GodsUC - #2DG" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

direction or means, nor male fairy, either. Only a few steps
into the tree-covered area and a man felt his breath become
labored and hard; in a few steps more, he would be gasping
for air, with the choice of suffocation or fleeing outside the
invisible but tangible boundaries.

Legend said that a great witch, a virgin power who was the
daughter of Adam and Lilith, had finally tired of the world and
its struggles and created this place, perhaps on the spot where,
a world away, Eden had once stood; and here she remained to
this day, never aging, never changing, in some strange and
wondrous world of her own creation, echoing imperfectly the
Garden she once actually saw so long ago. Exiled, as her mother
had been, to this new and alternate Earth, unable to die and
unable to forget, she was in a state where, at least, she might
not go mad.

Some said she was mad, of course, while others said she
9




10

DEMONS OF THE DANCING GODS

had transformed herself, and that she was not in the Glen Dinig
but rather was the magical forest now. All that was agreed
upon was that she was there, that her name was Huspeth, and
that even those who really didn't believe in her still feared and

respected the name.

The woman who rode into the forest confidently had a great

deal of the respect and awe that Huspeth and the Glen Dinig
radiated within herself, but she did not fear either the witch of
Glen Dinig or the forest itself. She knew them well, as old
friends and great teachers, and she owed them much. She did
have fears and concerns, though, and she dreaded this trip for
what to the superstitious outsiders would seem amazing rea-
sons. She was coming to ask of them that they separate her
from this wonder and magic forever, because she had no choice.

The woman had a strange appearance, both human and fairy,
with a beautiful, almost unnatural face and figure set off by
enormous, deep, sensuous eyes that no human ever had. Her
skin, too, was a soft orange, and her hands and feet, with their
length and clawlike nails, were pure fairy.