"Kate Forsyth - Eileanan 05 - The Skull Of The World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forsyth Kate)

dancing flames the Khan'cohban's face was inscrutable. She passed the skystone in her hand through the
smoke and dropped it back into the little pouch of skin she carried always at her waist. Taking a
smoldering stick from the fire, she drew a large circle and quartered it with two swift motions. Then she
poured the contents of the pouch out into her hand and brooded over them. Suddenly she threw the
bones and stones into the circle without opening her eyes.

Isabeau gazed anxiously at the pattern the thirteen bones had made in the circle. She then looked at the
Soul-Sage, who was regarding the pattern intently. After a while the shaman pointed one long,
four-jointed finger at the bird's claw.

"Sign of the Soul-Sage, a good omen for your quest, so high to the roof of heaven," she said. "A sign of
death as well as wisdom, though, and shadowed by the closeness of the nightstone and the sky-stone.
Change ahead for you, like the change wrought on a landscape by an avalanche. Much danger and
struggle." Her hand swept down to the fang and the knucklebone and the fiery garnet, and then across to
the fish fossil. "Dangerous pattern indeed. There are things in your past and in your unknown which shall
seize you in their jaws and seek to drag you under."

The Soul-Sage had said "unza," another word with many different meanings. With a gesture out into the
distance it meant "the unknown place," anywhere beyond the pride's boundaries. With a circling gesture
over the head it meant "the place of nightmares," the dreaming unconscious mind. With a sweep of the
hand toward the heart and then between the brows, it meant secret thoughts, secret desires. The
Soul-Sage had used all of these gestures, and Isabeau struggled to understand her meaning. "My
unknown," she repeated with the same gestures and the Soul-Sage nodded impatiently.

The shaman's hand then darted to touch the finger bone. "Forces in balance, past, future, known,
unknown. Puzzling. Quest could fail, quest could triumph." She touched the purple and white lumps of
quartz, and then the skystone again. "I think triumph, though many pitfalls in your path. Beware too much
pride, too much impetuosity." Her finger circled the fool's gold. "Deception, or perhaps a disguise. Hard
to tell. A strange conjunction. Troubling."

She was silent for a long time, her hands folded again in her lap, then slowly she reached out and stroked
the smooth green of the moss agate, tracing the shape of the fossilized leaf at its center. "Harmony,
contentment, healing. Calm after the storm. You must be at peace with yourself, whatever you discover
yourself to be. A good place for this stone. I think all will be well."

She looked up at Isabeau and her fierce face with its seven arrow-shaped scars was even grimmer than
usual. "Not a good casting. Much remains dark to me. I do not know if you will return from your quest at
all, let alone with a good name and totem. I am surprised to find your pattern so incoherent." Her finger
reached out and touched the triangular scar between Isabeau's brows. "1 had thought you already chosen
by the White Gods."

Her hand dropped and she brooded over the pattern of the bones for a while longer before sweeping
them up and purifying them one by one in the smoke of her fire. Isabeau longed to question her, but knew
the Soul-Sage had said all she would say. The little frisson of fear passed through her again, raising the
hairs on her arms and causing her stomach muscles to clench. Buba gave a little hoot of reassurance and
Isabeau hooted back.

The Soul-Sage looked up from her task and gave an odd little smile. "But I forget," she said. "The owl
chooses to fly with you. The owl is the messenger of the White Gods, the queen of the night and death
and darkness, the Soul-Sage of birds. That is an omen that should not be forgotten."