"Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Bitterbynde 03 - The Battle of Evernight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

them under Hob's Hill.
One child alone had not answered the Piper's call. Ashalind na Pendran had an injured leg and was
unable to follow. As she grew up in the city of sorrow, she sought constantly for a way into the Piper's
realm. Easgathair, one of the Fa├кranтАФthe immortal race who walked of yore in ErithтАФtook pity on her,
and described a way to penetrate Hob's Hill. Once inside, Ashalind was brought before the Crown
Prince of the Fa├кran, Morragan, the Raven Prince. Clever Ashalind was able to answer three questions
with which the prince challenged her. In return, he permitted the children to return to the world of
mortals.
However, the relinquished children began to pine and languish. A profound Longing for the Fair
Realm had gripped them, a deadly yearning known as the Langothe. The wizards of Avlantia declared
that there was no known cure. In desperation, Ashalind called on Easgathair to allow the children to pass
back into the Fair Realm, this time with their families, so that the Longing would leave them, allowing
them to survive. Easgathair granted her request. He also announced that the Gates between the Realm of
the Fa├кran and the lands of mortals would soon close forever.
On the Day of Closing, the citizens of Hythe Mellyn deserted their homes and rode into the Fair
Realm. Just before the Gates swung shut, Ashalind discovered that there was in fact a cure for the
Langothe, of which the wizards had been unaware. She decided to return to Erith. Due to a last-minute
skirmish between Prince Morragan and his brother, Angavar, both members of the Fa├кran royal family
were locked out of the Fair Realm along with their respective retinues. They were forever exiled to the
world of mortals. However, Ashalind had already slipped into a traverse known as the Gate of Oblivion's
Kiss because of the condition, or bitterbynde, it imposed on all who entered it.
By the time she-of-many-names emerged, a millennium had elapsed in Erith. Through many trials she
managed to make her way to Huntingtowers, where, on the haunted slopes of the caldera, she lost her
golden hair, her voice, and her memories.
The Gate's bitterbynde had come upon her.
END OF BOOK TWO
 1
KHAZATHDAUR
The Masts of Shadow




Pale rings of smoke come floating through the trees,
Clear voices thread like silver on the breeze,
And as I look towards the west I grieve,
For in my heart, I'm crying out to leave.
тАФMADE BY LLEWELL, SONGMAKER OF AURALONDE


The rain was without beginning and without end. It pattered on incessantly, a drumming of impatient
fingers. There was only the sound of the rain and the rasp of breathing while the girl, mute, amnesiac,
shorn, and wasted, climbed out over the brink of the mine-shaft. She was alone, with no concept of her
own identity, no memory of how she had come to this place. In subterranean darkness she crawled
blindly, until, reaching an opening, she tumbled out among javelins of rain. Over levels of harsh stone and
through dripping claws of vegetation she drove herself on limbs emaciated by weeks of the Langothe and
days of starvation in the wilderness and lack of appetite for the food of Erith after the sight and fragrance
of Fa├кran fare. Sometimes she slept momentarily, or perhaps lost consciousness.
Pleasantly, even the Langothe had been forgotten then.
With stiffening limbs she moved slowly through the mud and wet stone of the abandoned mine,