"Julia Gray - Guardian 02 - The Jasper Forest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gray Julia)

only visible moon was a pale sliver of amber, low in the eastern sky. In any
case, Kerin knew that neither he nor the land was false-dreaming. He would
have no need to plant a new prayer-flag - although many would, pointlessly in
his view, from fear.
The mountain awed Kerin, but it did not frighten him. He was certain that he
had been the first to return to the area, once the initial convulsions had
slowed a little, and he knew that they would soon be over. And then he would
move.
He had spent all but the earliest years of his life trekking over the region's
forbidding terrain. He knew its secrets and its dangers better than any man
alive. The faint trails, the hidden signposts, and the bizarre plant life of
Vejar Province were all familiar to him. It was a remote, barren area of water
and melting rock: of deeply-fissured plateaus, of pools studded with stone
towers, of sinkholes, caverns and crevasses, and of rivers that plunged
underground only to reappear many miles away. Near-vertical cliffs, conical
peaks and crags that had been carved into improbable shapes by wind and water
all contributed to the reputation of the province as a place of mystery and
peril, but they held no terrors for Kerin.
Indeed, he had earned his due-name by being the first тАФ and so far the only тАФ
man brave enough to walk through the Tzi Gate. This was a huge hole in one
particular ridge, formed when the old course of an underground river had been
exposed by erosion and an earth tremor. Although Kerin had recognized it as a
natural formation, others had been intimidated by the massive structure, and
linked its existence to supernatural powers. No one had dared tempt fate by
entering the so-called gate until Kerin had decided to do so, simply because
he'd wanted to see what was on the other side. Staring up at the roof of the
stone archway, half a mile above his head, had been a humbling experience, but
the view from the other side had been disappointingly ordinary and Kerin had
returned without mishap. After that he had known that there was no part of
Vejar that was forbidden to him - provided, of course, that he always obeyed
the dictates of the sky тАФ and he had been travelling ever since, only seeing
his wife and young sons for a few days each year.
Even so, he had never seen anything like this before. And yet he knew where
the black rock had come from -even if he did not understand why тАФ and was
already studying its formations. He was shrewd enough to realize that such
opportunities came only once in any lifetime, and he was determined to take
his chance when the mountain finally grew still. He would be the first to
climb the new peak. Excitement vibrated within him, in time with the trembling
of the earth, but Kerin's eyes were calm and his gaze never shifted from the
mass of dark stone.
PART ONE
FENDUCA
Chapter One
He could hear a voice. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't tell where it was
coming from, or see the face of the man who spoke.
'I remember it now as I remember dreams; in fragments that make no sense by
themselves; in the feeling that I have seen or experienced something before,
without knowing when or where.'
There were faces then. Dozens of them, curious or indifferent, smiling or
angry. So many faces - but never hers. Not even here, not even now.