"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 03 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

tended to his own and Andry's wounds, and pronounced them fit for travel.
"Elktrap?" he asked as Andry hoisted him into the saddle.
"I'd rather go straight on to Feruche if you can make it." Taking the reins, he started walking. Though Radzyn horses were strong, this one still favored his near foreleg a bit.
Just past noon they reached a shortcut Andry remembered from a map. No need to trust his memory, though; the trail was trampled down, clearly visible. Alasen had come through only yesterday. No subsequent rain or snowfall obscured the tracks.
A sluggish breeze began to stir halfway through a gray afternoon. Measure after measure, Andry put one foot in front of the other, ignoring the throbbing in his head, refusing to consider what was and what might be. Eventually he was unable to think past the next step. His body was beyond weariness, numb with cold; his mind found comfort in sodden exhaustion.
But what was permissible and even desirable for him was not allowed his horse. They might have continued by dark, a fingerflame lighting their way, but the stallion was exhausted and limping badly. So when the pale, stubborn glow of the sun was a fingerspan above the western crags, Andry called a halt.
Evarin stirred blearily in the saddle. "We there yet?"
"No. I have to build a shelter while there's light enough to work. You're tonight's cook. Surely all those years of brewing potions qualifies you."
Evarin rallied a little as he was helped off the horse. "Febrifuges and eye ointments aren't stuffed venison with moss-berry sauce. I can boil water."
"That's more than Sioned can do." He settled his friend on a flat rock cleared of snow. "I know, I know, a princess isn't expected to cook. But she can't even brew a drinkable cup of taze. Speaking of which, here's a pot, and there's the snow. I'll be back soon."
Andry left the saddlebags where Evarin could reach them, tethered the horse, and started off into the trees. Snow would be thin on the ground beneath the gigantic pines, and he had every expectation of finding branches suitable for his purpose. He had collected nearly a dozenЧneedles still green, limbs still supple enough to bendЧwhen he came upon a rabbit burrow. He'd never been much good at hunting large
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SKYBOWL
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game, but he'd caught plenty of sand-nesting creatures in his childhood. Rabbits couldn't be much more difficult.
He was wrong.
Sighing, he cast aside the stick he'd been using in a doomed attempt to coax the bleating animal from its den. So much for rabbit stew tonight. But on his way back, lugging heavy branches, he had the good fortune to find a brave, bedraggled clump of wolfpaw growing around a tiny frozen pond. Everything about the plants, from golden-brown flowers to pulpy root, was edible, nourishing, and delicious when soaked in wine. Hoping Evarin hadn't drunk all of what he'd liberated from Pol's cellars, he crouched down to harvest dinner.
The pond was no more than a puddle, barely an armspan across, and the trees formed nothing resembling a circle. But all at once Andry sat back on his heels, breathing hard. The stones rimming the pool had been set there deliberately.
He'd heard of two tree-circles in his life: one near Goddess Keep, the other close to the ruins of Lady Merisel's castle on Dorval. He'd never even considered that there might be others.
Or that they might be used by the diarmadh'im. Stoneburners.
Was the Goddess here? Was this her place? Had it once belonged to her and been corrupted?
Only one way to find out.
He stripped off his gloves and pocketed them, and let his cloak fall from his shoulders. There was no question of removing the rest of his clothes; he wasn't suicidal and doubted that the Goddess wanted the Lord of her Keep to freeze to death. After closing his eyes for a few moments to steady his mind and his breathing, he gazed at the stone directly opposite him. It was larger than the others, upright in the frozen mud like an arm reaching for the sky. He would call Fire to it, let it cascade down to melt the ice, and then pluck a hair from his head to float on the freed water....
But at the first glimmer of Fire, the stone itself turned to flame. Angry crimson burst head-high, then bled in a swift circle to ignite all the rocks. Andry flinched back and bade the Fire be gone.
It burned brighter than ever.
Within the circle, the sheet of ice reflected living Fire. Across the mirrorlike surface swirled furious shadows
painted in red and yellow and orange. His hands shook as he tugged a single hair from his napeЧstartled to find it was a gray oneЧand let it fall onto the solid, unmelting ice.
Fire, Water, the Earth of which he was made. One more thing would finish the gathering of ElementsЧand somehow he knew that if he did not breathe Air across the pond, the flames would burn forever. This was a ritual that demanded completion. But for Andry, it was like being trapped in a dream, struggling to wake, desperately aware that until it was over there would be no escape.
It was not his breath but the Storm God's that blew across the ice and flames, scattering shadows. The pond was truly a mirror nowЧa diarmadhi mirror, not reflecting what was before it but revealing what was inside it.
And unlike the mirror he'd found in the Veresch, this one did not show the living. Every face he saw was the face of someone dead.
He knew them, had seen them since childhood or at Riall'im or in Fire conjurings that showed others how to recognize them. Halian of Meadowlord, the Parchment Prince; black-eyed Miyon of Cunaxa; hawk-nosed Kostas of Syr. Volog and Latham of Kierst, father and son, alike in features but not in the marks of age and rule. The brothers Edirne and Camanto of Fessenden, utterly unalike. And the youngest, and the most regrettable death: Rihani of Ossetia.
One after another the faces of dead princes appeared and were consumed in flames, just as the castles had been dropped and shattered.
The price of this war? The sacrifices? What might have bought their lives?
Kostas, assassinated by a Merida. Rihani, dead of wounds. Halian and Latham murdered. Volog alone had succumbed to natural causes. Edirne had been killed in an accident. Miyon's death had been an execution as far as Andry was concerned. He didn't know how Camanto had diedЧhadn't even been aware of his death, in fact, until now.
But if this was the tally of princes sacrificed to this war, where was Rohan?
Andry sat back on his heels, tearing his gaze from the empty ice-mirror to stare at the trees. Though they formed only an arc, not a circle, around him, they were easily identified. The one directly to his left was the Child; next to it, Youth. A flowering bush, naked now in winter, intervened
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between that tree and the one that must represent the Man. Beside it was the Father. And just to Andry's right was a massive pine that could only be the Graybeard.
Would there be any answer, in this place that seized Fire and gave it independent life to mirror the faces of the dead?
Long ago he had consulted other trees at the proper time. At Goddess Keep the pines formed an elegant circle around a larger forest pool with its rock cairn. He had asked his questions of all the treesЧexcept the Graybeard. Not many had the courage to look into their old age until it was actually upon them. And by then questions generally lost their importance anyway, if one was lucky enough to be granted a placid finish to life.
Andry had the depressing feeling that his own old age would be as turbulent as his youth.
He shifted slightly, biting his lip. Then he plunged his bare hands through the Fire and into the ice, and faced the mighty tree.
The ice shards cut like crystal. Needles of pain drove into his knuckles, bringing a muffled cry to his lips. The Fire atop the standing stone flared once more, and in it he saw the face of a man.
No. The face of the God.
He was like unto the Goddess in that his terrible beauty had no specific feature. He was Rohan and Meath and old Prince Lleyn; he was Torien, Pol, and Walvis. He was Andry's father and grandfather and brothers and sons. Ostvel's gray eyes became Roelstra's leaf-green, Tallain's deep brown, and then a clear sapphire blue.
He was ... Andry.
A voice smooth and hard as polished stone reverberated in his mind. No one calls Fire here now. No one comes to see the faces of the dead,
Andry caught his breath in an instinctive protest, then realized his foolishness. Everyone died. No bargain could be struck hereЧhis faith for a life as it had purchased Radzyn.