"Robert Jordan - Dragonmount" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

PROLOGUE



Dragonmount

The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as
if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the
walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks
marred the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the
blistered paints and gilt of once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling
friezes of men and animals, which seemed to have attempted to walk before the
madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children,
struck down in attempted flight by the lightings that had flashed down every
corridor, or seized by the fires that had stalked them, or sunken into stone
of the palace, the stones that had flowed and sought, almost alive, before
stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and paintings,
masterworks all, hung undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them
awry. Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched
except where rippling floors had toppled them. The mind twisting had struck at
the core, ignoring peripheral things.
Lews Therin Telamon wandered the palace, deftly keeping his balance when the
earth heaved. "Ilyena! My love, where are you?" The edge of his pale gray
cloak trailed through blood as he stepped across the body of a woman, her
golden-haired beauty marred by the horror of her last moments, her still-open
eyes frozen in disbelief. "Where are you, my wife? Where is everyone hiding?"
His eyes caught his own reflection in a mirror hanging askew from bubbled
marble. His clothes had been regal once, in gray and scarlet and gold; now the
finely-woven cloth, brought by merchants from across the World Sea, was torn
and dirty, thick with the same dust that covered his hair and skin. For a
moment he fingered the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white and half
black, the colors separated by a sinuous line. It meant something, that
symbol. But the embroidered circle could not hold his attention long. He gazed
at his own image with as much wonder. A tall man just into his middle years,
handsome once, but now with hair already more white than brown and a face
lined by strain and worry, dark eyes that had seen too much. Lews Therin began
to chuckle, then threw back his head; his laughter echoed down the lifeless
halls.
"Ilyena, my love! Come to me, my wife. You must see this."
Behind him the air rippled, shimmered, solidified into a man who looked
around, his mouth twisting briefly with distaste. Not so tall as Lews Therin,
he was clothed all in black, save for the snow-white lace at his throat and
the silverwork on the turned-down tops of his thigh-high boots. He stepped
carefully, handling his cloak fastidiously to avoid brushing the dead. The
floor trembled with aftershocks, but his attention was fixed on the man
staring into the mirror and. laughing.
"Lord of the Morning," he said, "I have come for you."
The laughter cut off as if it had never been, and Lews Therin turned, seeming
unsurprised. "Ah, a guest. Have you the Voice, stranger? It will soon be time
for the Singing, and here all are welcome to take part. Ilyena, my love, we