"Gray, Julia - Guardian 05 - Alyssa's Ring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)
Prologue
It was a night when mountains ground their teeth, when islands moved like ships and the oceans boiled.
The people of Senden knew nothing of the ways of the sea or the fate of islands, but they heard the distant mountains growl and felt the ground shake beneath their feet. This was the night they had been waiting for, and they watched in awe and terror, the words of the Zealot echoing in their ears, as events unfolded in the sky above. The time of fire and darkness was upon them, the time when the moons would fall and the world would end - the time when all their sins would have to be accounted for. It was time to die.
As the four moons moved slowly and inexorably towards their fatal convergence, the Family gathered together for the last time. They abandoned the huts that had cost them so much time and effort to build out there in the wilderness, and left behind their few belongings, knowing that they no longer had any need of personal possessions. They made their way to the open space at the centre of the village - the heart of Senden - where the shape of the dark, five-pointed star had been marked upon the hard, stony ground, each of its points extended in tapering wavy lines that reached out like tentacles to the edges of the arena.
When they were all in place there were more than a hundred people present, two thirds of them women, and
they all sat facing inwards, turning their backs on the rest of Nydus, rejecting it. There was a feverish joy on some of their faces, naked fear on others. The youngest of them, infants who could not understand what was going on, could only trust in the adults around them - their parents, the Zealot's servitors - and, most of all, in the Zealot himself. He moved among the group, his voice ringing out in ecstatic promises or whispering words of encouragement to the less brave among his flock.
Nomar Veress sat on the ground beside his mother. She was crying softly and, although he didn't know the reason for her sorrow, her tears distressed him. He knew that something was going to happen this night - something important - but although the prospect had been exciting at first, he wasn't used to being awake so late and he was finding it hard to stay alert. His mother's sadness was the only thing that remained clear to him, and he tried to comfort her, slipping his small hand into hers. But she didn't even seem to notice that he was there, and her red-rimmed eyes stared up at the night sky.
Nomar followed the line of her gaze just in time to see a shooting star streak across the heavens. A collective murmur rose from the Family, and the boy felt his mother grow tense. In the past he had always thought shooting stars were wonderful - so bright and so fast - but recently, since the mountains had begun to shake, everyone seemed to regard any unusual sight in the sky as a possible cause for alarm. His mother mumbled something he couldn't hear, but he knew she wasn't talking to him and so he didn't ask her what it was.
'Don't cry,' he whispered instead, but she gave no sign of having heard him.
'Nomar is right, Lia. You should not be crying.' The Zealot had appeared before them as if by magic, his feet making no sound on the hard-packed earth. Now, as he squatted before them, his silver-grey eyes shone in the diminishing moonlight and the dark tattoos that marked his face and forearms seemed like living creatures upon his skin.
Lia nodded, wiped her eyes and tried to smile, but Nomar knew that her sadness had not gone away.
'This is our day of release, of our salvation,' the Zealot said. 'You know that, don't you?'
Lia nodded again.
'Then rejoice with the rest of our Family,' he told her earnestly. 'There should be no fear, no unhappiness, in such company.' He paused, then added, 'Paradise is coming.'
That was something he said quite often. For a long time Nomar had waited for a person called Paradise to arrive at the village, but that misunderstanding was behind him now. He still wasn't completely sure what Paradise was, but he knew it was good, and he hoped he and his mother would enjoy it.
Lia glanced around at those nearby, receiving a few encouraging smiles in return, but Nomar could tell that there was still something wrong. There was a kind of emptiness in her eyes now, as if she was looking for something she could not see. He longed to be able to find it for her.
'I wish . ..' she began, then faltered as her gaze returned to the Zealot's face.
'I know what you wish, child,' he said kindly, taking her free hand in his own. Then his voice became a little sterner. 'The Family is like a tree. Each branch, even the smallest twig, is strong because it is part of the whole, linked to the great trunk and the roots that hold it firmly in place. But it can only remain healthy if dead wood, those rotten parts that could spread weakness and disease to the rest, are cut away from time to time. Do you understand me?'
For a few moments Lia's face remained expressionless, but then she nodded, her eyes downcast - and Nomar found that he too knew what she had been wishing for. The boy had not really understood the story about the tree, but he knew it had something to do with his father. His mother had not been looking in vain for something, but for someone.
'You have all that you need around you here,' the Zealot went on.
There had been times when Nomar, like all the children of the Family, had been encouraged to think of the Zealot as his father. His real father was a shadowy figure he couldn't even remember properly, and they never talked about him now. When Nomar had first been old enough to notice that their small family was not like most others, he had asked and been told that his father had 'gone away'. He could still remember the funny way the words had been said. At the time he'd asked, 'When is he coming back?' 'Soon,' his mother had replied. But he never had. And not long after that, Lia had announced that their stay with the Family was to become permanent. 'Did you bring your cup?' the Zealot asked. Lia nodded again. They had all brought them, and she held hers up now. 'And Nomar's?'
She turned to the boy at last, and squeezed her son's hand. Obediently he took out the small wooden bowl he had helped to make soon after they had come to Senden. The crooked black star painted on the side had been his main contribution. He had always known that the cup was special, but he had never been allowed to use it until now.
'Good boy,' the Zealot said approvingly. He picked up a jug that one of the servitors had set down beside him and poured a little liquid into the cup. Nomar thought it looked like watery milk, but the smell was wrong.
Nomar glanced up at the sky, following the gaze of the adults around him. As he did so, some of the grey liquid spilled from his cup on to his leg. He moved quickly to hide his clumsiness and, much to his relief, no one seemed to notice. When he looked up again - more carefully this time - he saw that the four moons were almost in line now, the Red, Amber and White shrinking to crescents as each was hidden by the one in front of it, while the closest of all, the invisible Dark Moon, slid across, swallowing their light. Soon, when the confluence was complete, the sky-shadow would obliterate them all.
Such a precise alignment of full moons was very rare, happening only once every seventy-five years, and everyone - even someone as young as Nomar - knew that such moments were significant. On Nydus, the aspects of the moons always meant something.
The Zealot had left them now, returning to the centre of the gathering to stand at the midpoint of the dark star. The servitors had all completed their tasks and were sitting with the rest, watching the sky above. The night seemed hushed, unnaturally quiet, and when their leader spoke his voice rang out like a sonorous, deep-toned bell.
'My name is Araguz!' he declared, his arms spread wide.
There were gasps of surprise all around. The Zealot had never told any of them his real name, and the fact that he had chosen to do so now only deepened the significance of the moment.
'The invisible forces of earth and fire, of wind and sky, flow through me. The moons move within the tides of my blood.'
Above them, the lunar crescents grew thinner.
'Rejoice now!' Araguz cried. 'Only after the black night of the darkest star will we all find peace. Welcome to the only true light.'
The moment was upon them. At the exact moment of conjunction, the last vestiges of the moons disappeared. As the sky became a deeper black, the distant stars shone brighter, their dominion for once unchallenged. The whole world seemed to hold its breath, even as the ground beneath them trembled slightly.
'Drink now,' the Zealot intoned. 'Paradise is here.'
The Family obeyed. And darkness claimed them all.
Nomar woke, feeling sick. The sour taste of the liquid was still in his mouth, and every muscle in his body felt as if it had been battered by rocks. When he opened his eyes, the pain that sliced through his head almost made him faint, and when he tried to move, his stomach rebelled and he vomited a thin stream of horrible green bile. He knew that he was more ill than he had ever been in his short life, but he also knew there was no one there to help him. When he was finally able to get his eyes to stay open, and to focus, he saw his mother sprawled on the ground, and reached out to touch her. She was cold, and her skin was pale and hard. He knew that she was dead.
They were all dead, except him. As terror and guilt engulfed him, he curled into a ball of misery and self-loathing, waiting - and wanting - to die.
When he next awoke, nothing around him had changed, but the thoughts ringing inside his head had. He still felt awful, and a raging thirst had now been added to his torments, but as the reality of what had happened became a little clearer, he experienced the first intimations of amazement, then a reluctant curiosity.
The world had not ended. The sun had risen as it always did, and the daylight was warm, but there was no all-consuming fire, no smothering darkness of smoke and dust.
Nomar didn't understand what had happened, but when he heard the faint sound of a nearby stream, his body reacted instinctively. Slowly, agonizingly, he began to crawl towards the water.
After several torturous hours, he reached his goal. The clear liquid was cool and wonderfully refreshing, and he drank eagerly. It was not the Paradise he had expected, but it would do for now.
PART ONE
KENDA
Chapter One
The last thing Terrel saw before the darkness found him again was the White Moon falling from the sky. Even as the bright disc filled his dream, threatening to crush him beneath the weight of destiny, he saw the moon in all its guises. It hung over the tower of a hilltop fortress, was mirrored by a circle of pale stones in the sand, and floated like a perfect icy sphere above a mist-enshrouded island. Terrel had changed during his years of exile, and his dreams had changed with him, but some things never changed. The eternal moon vanished, extinguished without a trace.
Terrel braced himself for what he knew was coming next. Pain reached out with red fingers . . . but grasped at nothing. The crimson tide ebbed away as the dream ended prematurely, and Terrel struggled to make sense of what was happening. Fingers - real, human fingers - gripped his good arm, shaking it gently but with purpose.
'What is it?' Terrel mumbled, fighting to shake off the cobwebs of sleep.
'My father has one of his headaches,' Taryn replied. 'A bad one.' The boy's voice trembled as he spoke. Although he was only six years old, he was an unusually mature and resilient child, and seemed more than capable of dealing with most of the difficulties that presented themselves during his erratic journey through life. But when his father was in the grip of one of his periodic attacks, Taryn
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |