"Kenneth C. Flint - A Storm Upon Ulster" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Kenneth C)

PROLOGUE

"Cuculain!"

The voice called to him, forcing its way into his uneasy sleep.

He dreamed of a tree whose leaves glittered silver in the bright suniight as
it grew and spread and bore strange fruit. But the calling of his name seemed
to blight it, for the fruit rotted on the tree and fell, and the leaves
tarnished to black and fluttered down to leave only bare, gnarled branches.

"Cuculain!" said the voice again, soft and bright as a child's laugh,
sorrowful and insistent as death. This time it awoke him fully and he sat up
in the bed to peer around him at the room. The full moon threw a shaft of
light through the single window and lit even the cham-^jber's corners. They
were empty.

-.:- The voice seemed to have come from the window. He

тАв*тАв fitted the cover and climbed carefully out of the bed, not wishing to
disturb his wife who slept peacefully on. The sharp chill of the air tingled
against his skin as he crossed the room to the window and looked out.

Below him the Dun Dalgan cliffs dropped sheer away to the sea. At their base
the great waves of the Eastern Ocean crashed against the rocks with an endless
rhythm. The moon's brilliance struck the sea spray and made the ^rising peaks
of water titanic blossoms of light that ^bloomed only an instant before
exploding into fragments on the cliff face.

; It was only the sound of the waves he heard, he told himself sleepily, and
moved back to the bed. He sat down Upon it, but looked up in alarm as
something caused the light from the window to suddenly flicker and dim. A
tall, slender woman in a long, gray cloak stood in the

1

2 A STORM UPON ULSTER

shaft of moonlight. She seemed barely past childhood, her face smooth, her
hair a flow of white-gold. Her skin glowed with a subtle inward illumination
as a banked fire glows with the deep-buried embers. She seemed even to emanate
a warmth that drove the chill of the sea from the room.

In confusion, Cuculain looked from her to the still form of his wife.

"It is all right," the woman assured him in a voice as fine as a strand of
thinly drawn silver wire. "Your wife will not awaken. It was only you I came
to see."

"And who are you?" he asked.