"Elliott,.Kate.-.Crown.Of.Stars.3.-.Burning.Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

although he was smaller in stature than she expected. The
feathers with which he decorated himself shone as boldly as if
they had been painted. The flax rope at his thigh was perhaps
a finger longer than when she had last seen him, weeksЧor
was it months?Чago. A tremulous moan sounded from the
depths of| the forest, and a moment later she recognized it as
a horn call.j She shaded her eyes, and there along a distant
path seen dimly under shadows she saw a procession
winding through the trees. At the head of the procession, a
brilliant wheel of beaten gold and iridescent green plumes
spun, although no wind blew.

"How did I come here?" she asked hoarsely. "The creatures
were chasing me, and then I saw an owl. . . and ." She turned
in the saddle to see the stone still blazing, blue-white and
cold. No owl flew.

"An owl," he mused, fingering a proud feather of mottled!
brown and white, one dull plume among the many bright ones
that trimmed his forearm sheath. He smiled briefly, if not
kindly. "My old enemy."

"Then the horse leaped, and I was here," she finished
haltingly. She felt like a twig borne down a flooding stream.
Too much was happening at once.

"Ah." He displayed the rope and the fiber he twined to create
it. "Out of one thing, we make another, even if there is no
change or addition of substance. Sometimes it is the pattern
that matters most. These strands of flax, alone, cannot
support me: or aid me as this rope can, and yet are they not
both the same; thing?"

"I don't understand what you're saying."

" is a gateway between the worlds. All of the stones are
gateways, as we learned to our sorrow, but this one was not
fashioned by means of mortal magics but rather is part of the
fabric of the universe. To use it, one must understand it."

"I don't know anything," she said bitterly. "So much was kept
hidden from me."

"Much is hidden," he agreed. "Yet nevertheless you have
come to me. If you are willing, I sense there is a great deal
you can learn."

"Ai, God. There's so much I need to know." Yet she hesitated.
"But how long will it take? To learn everything I need to
know?"