"Mary Jacober - The Black Chalice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jacober Mary)

He heard the flutter of a bird's wing, still unreal, still unregistered in his conscious
mind, then the whisper of something moving past his shoulder. The candle tumbled, and
burning wax spilled across the parchment. It flared into a gulp of bright heat, collapsed,
and the room went dark.
 "So." A voice spoke from the void before him: a woman's voice, bitter, mocking, utterly
familiar. "You haven't changed much, Paul of Ardiun. You've been seventeen years in the
house of your God, and you're still a liar."
He rose to his feet, grasping the crucifix he wore about his neck and crossing himself
with his other hand. Both actions were as quick and natural as the reflexes of combat. He
was not a timid man. He had fought the heathens of the east for eleven years, and he had
encountered the Otherworld before. But his body was icy now with sweat, and his heart
almost failed him as the darkness before him changed, and he saw her.
There was a kind of pale light about her, unsteady as firelight. Years had passed, yet
everything about her was familiar, even the scar on her wrist and the gown which
wrapped her body like running water, its colors never the same. She was, of course, still
beautiful. Black hair spilled over her shoulders, and emeralds lay like green berries along
the curves of her throat. Karelian's emeralds, heirlooms of his ancient house, lost and
soiled forever now, like pearls thrown to swine. Hatred calmed his fear a little, and gave
him breath.
"Begone from this place, creature of Satan!" he cried savagely.
"I command you in God's name! Begone!"
It was as though he hadn't said a word. She moved towards his small wooden desk,
brushed the fingertips of her graceful ringed hand through the ashes of his evening's
labor, and picked up his quill.
"Those who eat the world write its histories," she said. "Some lie knowingly, and some
in truth no longer remember what they did, for if they remembered they could not bear
to live."
Still holding the quill, she looked directly at the monk.
"You will begin again, Paul. And this time, you will tell the truth."
She touched the quill to her lips, murmuring words he could not understand. It seemed
to glow with the same pale fire surrounding her.
He tried to think, to find some way to shield himself, but his mind floundered in
confusion and his body could not move. Everything was happening too quickly. He had
come to feel safe, here in the monastery, safe after so many years of quietly acquired
peace. Now all his knowledge as a man of God abandoned him, and his invocations of
self-protection died unspoken in his throat.
She spoke to the quill again, this time in his own tongue, and aloud.
"You are bound now, feather of Reinmark," she said. "He cannot unbind you; he
doesn't have the power. Write now what he truly remembers, and not what his masters
expect him to say."
She laid the quill down, looked at him once, and smiled. A cold smile, pitiless, like the
one she must have smiled long ago, thinking of Gottfried, closing her hand upon the stone
of his destiny. A look which spoke without words: Do what you like now; it won't matter.
I have defeated you.
She dissolved into darkness and a soft whir of wings, and the night was still.
He knelt then, one hand gripping the edge of the wooden desk because he thought he
might fall. He crossed himself. The words of prayers formed in his mind, and scattered
again and were gone. Karelian's voice took their place, soft as it so often was, an
astonishing soft voice in such a fierce man of war:
Pauli, Pauli, there is so much you don't understand ....