"The Paths of Darkness 1 - The Silent Blade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Paths of Darkness)

around us, if we cannot share in a greater community? I
remember my years in the Underdark after I ran out of
Menzoberranzan. Alone, save the occasional visits from
Guenhwyvar, I survived those long years through my own
imagination.
I am not certain that Wulfgar even has that capacity left
to him, for imagination requires introspection, a reaching
within one's thoughts, and I fear that every time my friend
so looks inward, all he sees are the minions of Errtu, the
sludge and horrors of the Abyss.
He is surrounded by friends, who love him and will try
with all their hearts to support him and help him climb out
of Errtu's emotional dungeon. Perhaps Catti-brie, the woman
he once loved (and perhaps still does love) so deeply, will
prove pivotal to his recovery. It pains me to watch them
together, I admit. She treats Wulfgar with such tenderness
and compassion, but I know that he feels not her gentle
touch. Better that she slap his face, eye him sternly, and
show him the truth of his lethargy. I know this and yet I
cannot tell her to do so, for their relationship is much more
complicated than that. I have nothing but Wulfgar's best
interests in my mind and my heart now, and yet, if I showed
Catti-brie a way that seemed less than compassionate, it
could be, and would be-by Wulfgar at least, in his present
state of mind- construed as the interference of a jealous
suitor.
Not true. For though I do not know Catti-brie's honest
feelings toward this man who once was to be her husband-for
she has become quite guarded with her feelings of late-I do
recognize that Wulfgar is not capable of love at this time.
Not capable of love ... are there any sadder words to
describe a man? I think not, and wish that I could now assess
Wulfgar's state of mind differently. But love, honest love,
requires empathy. It is a sharing-of joy, of pain, of
laughter, of tears. Honest love makes one's soul a reflection
of the partner's moods. And as a room seems larger when it is
lined with mirrors, so do the joys become amplified. And as
the individual items within the mirrored room seem less
acute, so does pain diminish and fade, stretched thin by the
sharing.
That is the beauty of love, whether in passion or
friendship. A sharing that multiplies the joys and thins the
pains. Wulfgar is surrounded now by friends, all willing to
engage in such sharing, as it once was between us. Yet he
cannot so engage us, cannot let loose those guards that he
necessarily put in place when surrounded by the likes of
Errtu.
He has lost his empathy. I can only pray that he will
find it again, that time will allow him to open his heart and
soul to those deserving, for without empathy he will find no