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

'But it was not a dream. I wasn't even asleep.'
The voice droned on, a monotone. Boring. And yet he couldn't stop listening.
He was trapped.
'If I had been, the pain in my arm would have woken me.'
Why couldn't he see her face? Hadn't he been punished enough without that?
'No, I was not asleep. I know that now.'
The voice was growing quieter as it neared the end. But he knew that sooner or
later it would begin again, another cycle in the endless round.
'I was waiting to be born.'
The fear came then, clutching at him with red fingers, pulsing in his blood,
that other ocean. Thunder from within as well as from below. He was helpless
in both tides. He knew that the voice, his voice, was trying to tell him
something, but he couldn't understand what it was. And then he forgot
everything again. No memory. Just movement, gentler now, and the faces. None
of them real. Not even real ghosts.
He laughed at the thought before it was lost once more - until the next round.
'Farewell, brother.'
A new voice, one he did recognize. The enchanter was still pursuing him. But
that didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more. Not even time. A circle has no
end.
'I remember it now as I remember dreams . . .'
The raft drifted slowly on the sluggish tide, its single occupant curled up on
the rough wooden planks. Water slopped lazily around him, and the parts of his
clothing that were not sodden were encrusted with salt. His matted hair was
stiff with the same gritty substance; even his eyelashes were rimmed with
white, as if too many tears had evaporated there.
His eyes were open but glazed - not blind, but unseeing. He twitched
sometimes, like a sleeping dog when it dreams of chasing rabbits, but
otherwise he lay still. Whatever life he still possessed lay hidden deep
within his crumpled frame, behind the dwindling fire of tiiose pale,
diamond-fever eyes.
Lamplight bent and twisted around him. He was floating, swimming in darkness,
surrounded by an ancient loneliness. There was a star burning. Released, he
fell upwards, landing awkwardly on the roof of the cave. A bird perched next
to him. What's going on? Spiral winds carried her voice away, and a vast
roaring deafened him as the darkness shifted.
Two skies, two mountains. The Dark Moon swallowing the sun, the winged
huntress devouring her prey. A sword raised. More ghosts. Brother?
I was waiting to be born.
The star-maze glowed, beckoning. Hurry. Hurry!
The reason for haste eluded him. A circle has no end.
Terrel could no longer tell when he was dreaming or when he was awake. Both
worlds seemed equally bizarre. Occasionally, something - usually a spasm of
pain -reminded him that he must still be alive, but even that seemed doubtful
now. Surely there were no animals of such gigantic size in his world. They
towered over him, moving with a regular swaying rhythm that was both hypnotic
and vaguely menacing. He could feel their eyes fixed upon him. The creatures
were colourless for the most part, their skin hard and grey-looking, almost as
if they were made from stone. But no rock could ever have contorted itself
into such varied and fantastical shapes тАФ it could not move, as these