"Robert Jordan - The Wheel of Time 00 - New Spring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jordan Robert)

back the Shadow nine hundred years and more. Countless times it had been remade as time wore
it down, always the old ring melted to become part of the new. Some particle might still exist in it
of the ring worn by the rulers of Rhamdashar, that had lived before Malkier, and Aramaelle that
had been before Rhamdashar. That piece of metal represented over three thousand years fighting
the Blight. It had been his almost as long as he had lived, but he had never worn it. Even looking
at the ring was a labour, usually. One he disciplined himself to every day. Without the emptiness,
he did not think he could have done so today. In ko'di, thought floated free, and emotion lay
beyond the horizon.
In his cradle he had been given four gifts. The ring in his hands and the locket that hung
around his neck, the sword on his hip and an oath sworn in his name. The locket was the most
precious, the oath the heaviest. 'To stand against the Shadow so long as iron is hard and stone
abides. To defend the Malkieri while one drop of blood remains. To avenge what cannot be
defended.' And then he had been anointed with oil and named Dai Shan, consecrated as the next
King of Malkier, and sent away from a land that knew it would die. Twenty men began that
journey; five survived to reach Shienar.
Nothing remained to be defended now, only a nation to avenge, and he had been trained
to that from his first step. With his mother's gift at his throat and his father's sword in his hand,
with the ring branded on his heart, he had fought to avenge Malkier from his sixteenth nameday.
But never had he led men into the Blight. Bukama had ridden with him, and others, but he would
not lead men there. That war was his alone. The dead could not be returned to life, a land any
more than a man. Only, now, Edeyn Arrel wanted to try.
Her name echoed in the emptiness within him. A hundred emotions loomed like stark
mountains, but he fed them into the flame until all was still. Until his heart beat time with the
slow stamping of the stalled horses, and the flies' wings beat rapid counterpoint to his breath. She
was his carneira, his first lover. A thousand years of tradition shouted that, despite the stillness
that enveloped him.
He had been fifteen, Edeyn more than twice that, when she gathered the hair that had still
hung to his waist in her hands and whispered her intentions. Women had still called him beautiful
then, enjoying his blushes, and for half a year she had enjoyed parading him on her arm and
tucking him into her bed. Until Bukama and the other men gave him the hadori. The gift of his
sword on his tenth nameday had made him a man by custom along the Border, though years early
for it, yet among Malkieri, that band of braided leather had been more important. Once that was
tied around his head, he alone decided where he went, and when, and why. And the dark song of
the Blight had become a howl that drowned every other sound. The oath that had murmured so
long in his heart became a dance his feet had to follow.
Almost ten years past now that Edeyn had watched him ride away from Fal Moran, and
been gone when he returned, yet he still could recall her face more clearly than that of any
woman who had shared his bed since. He was no longer a boy, to think that she loved him just
because she had chosen to become his first lover, yet there was an old saying among Malkieri
men. Your carneira wears part of your soul as a ribbon in her hair for ever. Custom strong as law
made it so.
One of the stable doors creaked open to admit Bukama, coatless, shirt tucked raggedly
into his breeches. He looked naked without his sword. As if hesitant, he carefully opened both
doors wide before coming all the way in. 'What are you going to do?' he said finally. 'Racelle told
me about . . . about the Golden Crane.'
Lan tucked the ring away, letting emptiness drain from him. Edeyn's face suddenly
seemed everywhere, just beyond the edge of sight. 'Ryne says even Nazar Kurenin is ready to
follow,' he said lightly. 'Wouldn't that be a sight to see?' An army could die trying to defeat the
Blight. Armies had died trying. But the memories of Malkier already were dying. A nation was
memory as much as land. 'That boy at the gates might let his hair grow and ask his father for the