"Patricia Kennealy Morrison - The Hedge of Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kennealy Patricia)

Nothing much at first: It started with the light. Perhaps it had been there all along, and only later did I
come to notice itтАФa cool blue light even in daytime, or what I took for daytime, since I could see not sky
nor sun nor star to mark the hours. There was a small high window through which the light seeped down
to me; the window, though stoutly barred and grated, also sifted fresh air into my place of confining.
There were many days led up to that moment, and many more before I became gradually тАШware of faint
sounds beyond my chamberтАЩs ambit. Again, naught much, naught dramatic: just the natural small sounds
of life and those living it, shouts of folk, tread or call of beasts, far tiny cries of birds. But even when at
last it dawned on me that I might try to raise myself up to the window, and after another seeming eon I
did in fact succeed in so doing, I still could see nothing. It was as if beyond the stone walls and iron
grateтАФno door, you will noteтАФthat marked my world, only echoes existed.
I cannot tell you how long it was, much less seemedтАФonly later did I learn the true duration of my
captivity; for such indeed it was, but as yet I did not know even that, though you would think that the
bars and doorless cell would have given me the clueтАж Once I did remember, or was permitted to
remember, how to harp, I consoled myself with that, playing unceasantly, until the harperтАЩs calluses, all
but worn away with disuse, returned to my finger-ends. But nothing new did I make of song; all music
that came to me in that time came from a former time.
You may well imagine how this interested me, how I speculated madly on even the smallest thing.
Had I been a bard, then, before I came to be shut up here? I could not say. But it seemed at least
possible: There had been the harpтАЩs mere presence, for one thing. Most of our folk, however much we
love music (and almost all of us do), would not possess such an instrument at all, let alone so fine a one,
with its inlaid runes and gemstones adorning the soundbox. If bard, though, why could I not now
createтАФunless of course that was the reason for my punishment?
I was full ready to accept that; but still it seemed only part of it. I did not appear to have been a
warrior; the scars of that trade were utterly absent, save for two or three small white relics, long since
healed, marks that any user of a sword, however casual, might easily have come by. A Druid, then?
When I got to this possible former profession I was suddenly seized by a kind of formless dread: a sense
of something untapped, something tremendous and potentially liberating, shut away behind a barred door
far more unassailable even than the walls of my physical chamber. But if it were indeed magical skill that
had been set off so, it had been sealed off by a far greater talent than I, and I could find no way to come
at it. If I were Druid, belike I was not a very gifted oneтАж Perhaps I deserved to be here.
As time passed and I felt myself gradually awakening, one thing did come to mind, and it troubled me
greatly: a feeling as of some terrible and urgent task left undone, a charge upon which lives and even
kingdoms turned, and I the only bearer of the tidings. When first this thought came floating into my ken, I
dismissed it as mere vainglorious ravings: How could I, this humble dullard who could not even recall his
own name and life and profession, shut up in a place unknown for offences unguessed at, ever be thought
worthy to bear such a message of menace as this that I imagined?
But the thought would not leave me; and then, night after night, day upon day, the dreams began to
come: of people mostlyтАФa kingly man with hair like the red oak in autumn; a woman bright and
dangerous as a blade; another womanтАФand from dreams of her I woke weepingтАФwith clear eyes that
seemed to offer her love and soul and spirit to save me, to bring me home, her hands outstretched, on
one finger a ring of gold in form of two intertwined serpents with ruby eyes. Other faces there were, too,
and beings that were shapes only, shadowy and faceless; but though I knew I knew them all, I did not
know them, and it was torture not.
If they had messages of help for me, I could not hear them and in my dreams I strove mightily to tell
them so, to pray them speak louder, longer, clearer. And whether because of my prayers and my tears,
for pity of my asking, or for some other, greater reason, every now and again I broke through to the
truth, I burned through the fog that bound me, my mind unclouded and I knew all; for a moment, only,
but I did know! And then the slow soft dark would claim me again, and I forgot not only the knowledge
but also the knowledge that I had remembered, and I fell back into dullness and stolid stuporous daze.
Who knows how many times I almost breached the walls of my mind-prison? Certain sure I never