"Katherine Kurtz - Heirs 1 - Harrowing of Gwynedd" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kurtz Katherine)

husband and a first-born son as well as a father. I'd be the first to agree that
grieving overlong begins to be self-indulgent to the point of selfishness, but the
loss does need to be acknowledged."
"Yes, well, I think I've done that rather thoroughly. Now it's time to make
plans for the future. I can't do anything about Rhys or Aidan, but Father . . ."
" I wish you wouldnтАЩt."
"Joram, we've had this discussion before."
тАЬThat doesn't mean I have to like your conclusion.'' He sighed and set his
hands on his hips.
"Look. He lived a long, full life in his own right. By taking on Alister's
identity twelve years ago, he had another full, productive life, at an age when
most men are about ready to meet their Maker. He was seventy-one, for God's
sake, Evaine. Why can't you just let him be dead?"
"But what if he wasn't ready to die?" she retorted.
Joram snorted, shaking his head bitterly as he turned his gaze to the
shrouded body.
"How like Father, to presume to take that decision out of God's hands!"
"How is it presumption, if God gave him the means to continue, and it harms
no one? His work was unfinished."
"All men leave work unfinished when they die. Why should he be any
different?"
She grinned, despite the weight of their conversation. "Are you going to tell
me that he wasn't different?"
"We both know that he was," Joram breathed. "That isn't the question."
"Then, what is the question?"
He sighed. "It's the same question he asked himself, when Rhys was dying.
By then, he was fairly confident that he could work the spellтАФand it might have
spared Rhys until a Healer could be brought. But he also feared that a spell
powerful enough to hold back Death might have its own terrible cost, to the
subject as well as the operator. He would have been willing to accept the risk to
himself; but he decided that no one has the right to make that decision for
another soul.''
"But no one else was involved in Father's spell," Evaine reminded him.
Joram nodded. "That's true. But again, the spell is powerful. If Father is still
alive in some strange, mysterious way, who's to say he wouldn't rather stay that
way? Who are we to try to bring him back?"
She glanced down at the body before them, then drew the veil of samite over
his face once more. Farther down the veil, she could still see the slight bulge of
the handsтАФnot just folded peacefully on his breast, the way they had folded
Jebediah's, but slightly curvedтАФjustтАФso. That he had tried to work the spell to
hold back Death, she had no doubt. Whether or not he had succeeded, they
would not know until they attempted to reverse it and bring him back. But she
believed he would want them to try.
"Joram, I know this isn't an easy question," she said quietly, not looking at
him. "But when have we ever expected easy answers? Actually, we aren't
considering one question at all, but several. First of all, if he tried the spell and
failed, then he's merely dead, and nothing we do will make any differenceтАФso
it doesn't hurt to try.
"But if he is under the spell, then there are three distinct possibilities.
Either we bring him out of it and restore himтАФ which, presumably, is what he