"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

Still, Jayachin had done remarkably well in controlling the thousands of people now filing into the castle yard. She was readily visible on horseback, her white cloak blowing back over the haunches of her gray Radzyn mareЧeach a gift from him, at her suggestion. The color had become the Goddess' symbol; possession of a fine horse had always indicated wealth and power. All she lacked, Andry thought in amusement, was a silver breastplate and a jeweled sword and she would be the embodiment of the White Swan, whose personal name had been lost to history. He had never understood why. Lady Merisel had known her, mentioned her often in the scrolls.

The White Swan had led armies of Sunrunners and their allies to victory over the diarmadh'im before perishing in the final battle. Andry had always thought that her death was a little too neat, which made him suspect that she might not have been real at all. All good symbolic figures died at a properly symbolic time. But perhaps the White Swan had been all too real, and all too much competition for Lady Merisel. From the tone of her histories, Andry had long since learned that her talents had not included the ability to share, and among her virtues modesty was not featured.

Jayachin rode through the gates right on schedule, and moments later Nialdan blew a second blast from the horn. There were stragglers left outside the walls. This exercise would teach them the wisdom of haste. Andry raised both arms, drawing their eyes, and called Fire around the perimeter of the keep. He let it flare dragon-

high as the tardy ones approached. A moment later Ulwis took it over for him, working from a window high in the tower. This way, he could see to his next task while seeming powerful enough to maintain Fire.

Symbols and deceptions, he told himself as he limped down the stairs. Useful and necessary. But what happened when symbols deceived?

He rested for a moment in the stairwell, out of the chill wind, and constructed once more in his mind the sym-bology of his dreams. Radzyn destroyed, the hatchling dragon killed. But Radzyn stood. It had not been a hatchling that flew over the port, but a gigantic sire. The Vellant'im had groveled on their faces at the sight of him.

Brenlis had been able to see the future as it would be, carved in stone. Andry's dreams were only possibilities, like conjurings in Fire and Water at the tree circle. What he saw was mutable, written in sand. He had changed things by his actions: forming the devr'im, eradicating as many sorcerers as he could. But would those changes make things better or worse?

Andry had decided that Radzyn had been the symbol of his fear. In his dream, his home and family and all his ties to the Desert had been obliterated. He saw now that sending his daughter Tobren to live at Whitecliff had been an act of defiance, a challenge to his fear.

Radzyn stood. The bonds remained. Perhaps Tobren's presence had been the catalyst of the change; he only knew that in her way she had become a symbol, too, of his unbroken connection to his home.

As for the young dragonЧso obviously explained, so difficult to admit that dark and terrible insight into his own heart. It was only because Pol still lived that Andry had recognized his cousin's place in that dream.

And it had been Pol's dragon that had made the enemy bow into the dirt. This was a symbol he didn't much care for.

His thoughts turned to Lady Merisel's brisk text, and he was comforted into a slight smile.

I dreamed one night of serving a banquet of lobster from the isle of Pimanji. There was no mistaking the size and shape of the creatures. The cooks had wrapped them in silk soaked in spices that blackened over the coals, according to my favorite recipe. I took this to mean that my Lord Rosseyn had known success there and would send me the delicacies as a gift, knowing my fondness for them.

As it happened, the very next day I discovered a diarmadhi from that island in our midst. We wrapped her in silk soaked with fragrant spice-oils to disguise the stench as we burned her alive.

Symbols mean what you choose to believe they mean.

What Andry chose was to believe that Radzyn's survival meant he was still tied to the Desert. It was still the home of his ancestors; he still had a right and duty to defend it. As for the dragon . . . who knew what the great beasts symbolized to the Vellant'im? Andry was responsible for his own dreams, not the superstitions of barbarians. Until he discovered reasons for their ridiculous reaction, he'd reserve interpretation.

When he reached the courtyard, he gestured and the gates were opened again. He made his way through the crowd and walked a few paces outside, careful not to limp. Stragglers caught beyond the Fire huddled in little groups and gazed at sanctuary with longing, defiant, or fearful eyes. Raising both arms again, knowing Ulwis would see the signal, he watched the Fire fade into the ground. A few people rushed forward; some hung back, wary of him.

Andry smiled. "Come on, then," he urged. "You'll be quicker next time, I know."

Reproved by Sunrunner's Fire, reassured by the Sunrunner Lord's gentleness, they sought the safety Andry provided. When they were all inside, he paused at the gates to provide an impression of him standing between them and the Vellanti army they were imagining outside. Then he smiled once more and started for the steps of

the keep, for they didn't need him to supervise their return to their makeshift town. They parted for him, murmuring thanks and reverence.

They also parted for the woman on a gray horse. Jaya-chin rode over to him and bowed from her saddle.

"Were you satisfied, my Lord?"

"Quite," he responded, hiding annoyance that he had to look up at her.

"Perhaps next time should be after dark, my Lord," she suggested.

Oh, fine, he thought, that's all I needЧblasted from my bed in the middle of the night. And all these people need as well, unable to sleep for wondering if they'll be put through this again in pitch blackness. You foolish woman, can't you see you've just undone all the good this accomplished?