"Elizabeth Haydon - Symphony of Ages - Threshold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haydon Elizabeth)

After a while the point became moot. The ships stopped coming as the temperature of the sea over the
gravesite of the Sleeping Child grew increasingly warmer, causing bilgewater to boil in the heat and some
of the ships to burst at the seams. Hector no longer could summon the strength to think about those who
might still be on the other side of the wall, condemned now to remaining on the Island to the end, just as
the populations east of the Great River who had chosen to stay were condemned.

Just as he and his four companions were condemned.

It was far too late to worry about it now.

Hector blinked; the afternoon sun had shifted, blinding him. He shaded his brow and looked over at
Anais, who nodded toward the docks.

тАЬCome,тАЭ his Liringlas friend said, his silver eyes glinting in the light.

Without a word, Hector clicked to his horse and followed.



Bonfires burned along the wharf, the ashes mixing with the steam from the sea. Cantha, Jarmon, and
Sevirym must have found more bodies, human or otherwise, Hector knew, or something festering that
warranted the spending of precious fuel in making the pyres.

The irony of the infernos no longer choked him. In the weeks since the last ship had come and departed,
there had been many such bonfires along the route they traveled, a long southтАУnorth loop of the lands to
the west of the Great River. They had only ventured into the eastern territories onceтАФthat wide expanse
of land held the subkingdoms that had chosen to stay, either because they did not believe the kingтАЩs
vision, or, even in accepting it, preferred to remain in their birthlands to the end. Because the final
departure of the Third Fleet had been launched from the port of Kingston, it was to the westlands that the
stragglers had come late, and so it was this part of the realm that Hector had seen fit to guard, to maintain
a futile sense of order in the last days. The rioting and looting had dwindled as starvation and disease had
set in, and the western coast burned with cleansing pyres that would have made marvelous signal fires,
beacons of distress, had there been any ship out on the sea to answer them.

The clouds of smoke swirled and danced, buffeted by the inconstant sea winds. Hector could see the
black shadows of his friends moving silently in the haze, raking the ashes over, tossing driftwood onto the
pyres.

On the docks a shade that must have been Anais beckoned to him.

Hector walked through the acidic mist, his eyes stinging from the smoke, to the end of the pier where his
childhood friend waited and stood beside him, staring off into the lapping sea and the impenetrable fog. It
was a ritual they both had observed many times since the Second Fleet had departed, this silent vigil. In
standing there, together, as they had stood on that horrific day when together they bound over their wives
and children into the hands of MacQuieth for safekeeping, for a moment there was a connection, a link
back in Time, to the last place where life still held meaning for them.

тАЬI no longer dream of them,тАЭ Anais said, gazing into the steam. His voice was muffled by the whine of the
wind.