"Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Bitterbynde 01 - The Ill-Made Mute" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

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 For my beloved parents,
My wonderful husband, and my entire extended family,
For my friend, author Paul Witcover,
For Betsy Mitchell and Martha Millard,
And for Lizzie, who was the manuscript's first reader.




Cecilia
Dart-Thornton
 CONTENTS




1тАФFoundling
2тАФThe House of the Stormriders: Tale and Travail
3тАФThe Windships: Sail and Swordplay
4тАФThe Forest: Tree and Trickery
5тАФWaterstair: Candlebutter and Spiderweb
6тАФGilvaris Tarv: Pain and Perfidy
7тАФThe Road: Thicket and Thorn
8тАФMirrinor: Wights of the Water
9тАФDoundelding: Secrets Under Stone
10тАФRosedale: Briar and Bird
 1
FOUNDLING




Speechless, castaway, and wry, a spellbound oddity am I.
My feet are planted in the clay, my gaze is locked upon the sky.
тАФFROM THE TALITH SONG "YEARNING FOR FLIGHT"


The rain was without beginning and without end. It pattered on incessantly, a drumming of impatient
fingers. The creature knew only the sound of the rain and the rasp of its own breathing. It had no concept
of its own identity, no memory of how it had come to this place. Inchoate purpose drove it upward, in
darkness. Over levels of harsh stone it crawled, and through dripping claws of vegetation. Sometimes it
slept momentarily or perhaps lost consciousness. The rain lapsed. Time wore away.
With stiffening limbs the nameless creature moved on. Reaching level ground, it now rose onto
trembling legs and walked. Thought-fragments whirled like dead leaves inside its skull.
The ground emptied from beneath its feet. It hurtled downward, to be brought up on a spear-point
of agony. A band around its arm had snagged on a projection. The scrawny thing dangled against the
cliff-face, slowly swinging like bait on a hook.
Then slowly, with great effort, it lifted its other arm. Bird-boned fingers found the catch and released
it. The band sprang open and the creature fell.