"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 02 - Darkspell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

omens. As she was drifting back to sleep, she wondered if her path would ever cross his again. For all
that his dweomer frightened her, she was very fond of Nevyn, but the Kingdom was very large, and who
knew which way the old man would choose to wander.

On the morrow, the full significance of the dream came to her as she and Rhodry sat in the tavern
room. Yet once again, the dweomer had irrupted into her mind, taken her over with no warning. For a
moment she shrank into herself, just as when the hare hears dogs baying and crouches frozen in the
bracken.

тАШIs somewhat wrong, my love?тАЩ Rhodry said. ^

тАШNaught, naught. I was just ... oh, thinking about LoddlaenтАЩs war last summer.тАЩ

тАШIt was a strange thing, sure enough.тАЩ He dropped his voice to a whisper. тАШAll that cursed dweomer! I
pray to every god weтАЩre never touched by the dweomer again.тАЩ

Although she nodded her agreement, Jill knew that he was praying for the impossible. Even as he
spoke, her little gray gnome manifested onto the table and sat down by RhodryтАЩs tankard. All her life, Jill
had been able to see the Wildfolk, and this particular skinny, big-nosed little creature was a close friend.
Oh my poor Rhoddo, she thought, you ride with dweomer all around you! She felt both angry and
frightened, wishing that her peculiar talents would go away, fearing that they never would.

Yet once, last summer, Nevyn had told her that if she refused to use her talents, they would eventually
wither and be gone. Although she hoped that the old man was right - indeed, he knew far more about the
matter than she did - she had her doubts, especially when she considered how dweomer had swept her
into RhodryтАЩs war and RhodryтАЩs life that last summer. SheтАЩd been an utterly obscure person, the bastard
daughter of a silver dagger, until her father had taken what seemed to be a perfectly ordinary hire,
guarding a merchant caravan that was traveling to the western border of Eldidd. Yet from the moment
that the merchant had offered Cullyn the job, sheтАЩd known that something unusual was going to happen,
felt with an inexplicable certainty that her life had reached a crossroads. How right sheтАЩd been! First the
caravan went west to the land of the Elcyion Lacar, the elves, a people who were supposed to exist only
in fairy tale and myth. Then, with some of the elves in tow, theyтАЩd returned to Eldidd and ridden right into
the middle of a dweomer war.

Just in time for her to save RhodryтАЩs life by killing a man who, or so the dweomer seemed to declare,
was invincible - Lord Corbyn will never die by any manтАЩs hand, or so a prophecy declared. Like all
dweomer-riddles, this one had two sharp sides, and a lassтАЩs hand had slain him, sure enough. As she
thought about it, it all seemed entirely too neat, too clever, as if the gods shaped a personтАЩs Wyrd the
way a Bardek craftsman shapes a puzzle box with its precise little workings that mean absolutely nothing
in the long run. And then she remembered the elves, who were not men in any true sense, and Rhodry
himself, who was only half a one. She saw then that Rhodry might have slain his enemy himself, if only
heтАЩd believed he could, and that her coming, while convenient, need not be foreordained anymore than a
snowstorm that appears in winter could be said to be a mighty act of dweomer.

Yet dweomer had brought her to him; that she was sure of, if not to save his life, then for some
obscure purpose. Although she shuddered at the thought, she also found herself wondering why
dweomer should frighten her so badly, why she was sure that following the dweomer road would lead
her to her death. Suddenly she saw it: she was afraid that if ever she tampered with dweomer, it would
bring not only her death, but RhodryтАЩs. Even though she told herself that the idea was stupid, it was a
long time before she could shake the irrational feeling off.