"Holly Lisle - Secret Texts 3 - Courage Of Falcons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

"You believe. And I hope. And if I had a gold preid for every woman who ever said, 'He won't do anything to hurt me,' of a man who later beat the life out of her, I'd be the richest man in all the world."
Kait felt the edges of anger twisting in her gut. "You think he'll beat me? Me?"
"No. I don't think he'll do anything of the sort. But I know that you don't know what he will do. You cannot know. He's a man, with free will and self-determination, and as such, he's as unpredictable as any other man." Dughall leaned back. "Taking the oath of Falconry would . . . limit his options somewhat. In a good way. So that's why, if we had to choose only one of you, I would choose him. Bound to our side by oath and magic, he would cease to worry me so much."
Kait managed a small smile. "I understand. I can't say I like your thinking very much, but 1 do understand it." She picked at a soft spot on the rotting log beneath her. The rich wood smell filled her nostrils, comforting and familiar. "So how long will it take to prepare us to take the oath?"
Dughall snorted. "You could take it today. It isn't like taking the Oath of Iberism before the parmssaтАФyou don't have to memorize a catechism or a litany or learn the Obeisances or the Signs of Humankind. You swear to use only that power which is yours or freely given to you; to hold lifeтАФboth mortal and eternalтАФsacred; to do no harm with your magic, either through your action or your inaction, or, if harm is inevitable, to work for the least harm and the most good;
and to remain steadfast to the coming of Paranne and the return of the Reborn. Once you take the oath, it is perfectly capable of enforcing itself." He frowned thoughtfully and stared at the ground beneath his feet. "I don't know about that last clause anymore. The Reborn will not come a third time, and without him, there will be no city of Paranne, and no world of perfect love. I wonder if that ought to come out of the oath for new Falcons. . . ."
Kait got him back on track. "If you took our oaths today, we could destroy ... it ... today?"
"Eh?" Dughall returned his attention to her. "Oh. No, I don't think so. We have to work out a plan of attack. The artifact will certainly defend itselfтАФwe need to be certain when it does that we react effectively together. I think we'll only be ready to take it on after several days of practicing together. Even so, I suspect our chances of success are about the same as our chances of failure."
"You're more optimistic than I am." Kait remembered only too clearly the way the Mirror of Souls shattered her shield as if it weren't there and called Crispin to it when she started to take it in a direction it didn't want to go. She feared the Mirror, and wondered how the three of them, even strengthened by DughaH's Falconry, could hope to fend off its attack.
"Perhaps you're less optimistic with reason," Dughall said quietly. "You've been around the thing. I haven't. Your sense of it is certainly more clear than mine."
They sat without speaking for a few moments, lost in their own thoughts. Finally Kait stood and brushed wood chips and wood dust off her clothes. "I suppose we should be getting back."
"I suppose we should." Dughall rose, too, and looked toward the House. "Talk to Ry, will you? I'll tell him about the oath if you'd like, but I think it would be best if he understood both the positive and the negative aspects of becoming a Falcon from your perspective before he talked to me. I will not . . . and cannot . . . coerce him into something he doesn't want."
"He might refuse." Kait considered that possibility. She was
tempted to refuse herself. Without the promise of communion with the Reborn and the eventual building of the city of Paranne, Falconry seemed to her to have little to offer. And while it had lost the Reborn, which would have made any sacrifice worthwhile, it had kept its drawbacks intact.
"I realize that. If he refuses, we have little chance of success. But he must come to Falconry freely." Dughall glanced at her. "As must you. If you do not take the oath with a willing heart, your oath won't be accepted."
She realized she must have looked surprised by the smile on Dughall's face.
He chuckled. "You thought if you said the words, you would be bound to the oath whether you wished to become a Falcon or not?"
She nodded.
"I told you, the oath isn't just the words. If you truly have no wish to become a Falcon, nothing can make you. The words you will say must match the desire in your heart and the willingness of your soul to be bound beyond life itself to the precepts of Falconry. Nothing less will make you one of us."
She thought about that for a moment. "I'll tell him," she said at last. "And when we've talked, we'll let you know what we decide."
"That's all I can ask."
Chapter 21
Dughall completed his session with the zanda and rose, his face troubled. He did not understand the directions he'd received; he did not like the direction in which the gods were pointing him. Always, he had used magic to bring harmony, to create peace, to guide in positive directions. Now he was being directed to do something that ran counter to his every instinctтАФand yet three times the zanda had insisted this was the direction he must take if he and the Falcons were to triumph against the last Dragon and the army he raised.
He gathered the accoutrements of spellcasting and settled cross-legged onto the floor. He thought for a long time, composing the spell in such a way that it would do no harm, even though it would certainly seem to. Then he clipped a bit of hair from his head and scraped a bit of skin from the inside of his cheek and offered those into the blood-bowl. On a scrap of black silk that he had spread onto the stone floor, he dropped two tiny white spheres. When he dropped them, he dipped his fingertips in a little vial of clear gel and let the coating dry.
When he finished his physical preparations, he recited:
"Vodor Imrish, hear me nowтАФ This path which leads through seeming night
Must come at last to light of day
And all my actions be revealed
To mark me for this seeming crime.
I give my flesh to pay my price
And ward my deed in pure intent.
Upon the utterings of gods
And spirits do I cast this lot.
Send honesty among us, place
The fire of anger and the seed
Of discontent on those I mark.
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Alley, he thought. And he remembered a knife.
"Someone stabbed me."
"I know that well enough. And robbed you, too. Lying there naked as a babe, you were, but a damn sight uglier. Hands all twisted into claws, and a bit of a tail growing from yer backside, and yer face all stretched long like a wolf's. Or a lion's. Blood everywhere, and holes in yer hide would have killed a dozen men, and you still breathin'. Weirdest thing I ever saw ... so I brought you here t' tend you for a while. See what use you might be, so t' speak."
What use might he be?
He had his own purpose, didn't he?
He recalled pursuing someone. Being angry. Wanting to killтАФand then his memories cascaded over him, and he recalled his cousin Ry kidnapping his daughter, and he realized that he was running out of time. Ry might be anywhere with UlweтАФif he hadn't killed her already, he might soon. Crispin had to get away. He had to save his daughter. He tried to leap at the man, to kill him to get him out of the way.
Something held him back. Cut into his throat, his wrists, his legs, his chest, his thighs. He fought against the unseen restraints, howling with pain and wordless rage, and heard his captor say, "Damnall, you do this every time. No sense my tryin' to get you back t' healthтАФyou'll never be of use t' me."
The words stopped him. He remembered again that cudgel falling, and bringing darkness with it, and he lay still, and this time the blows did not fall.
"Ye'er learnin', anyway. 'Bout damn time." He heard shuffling; the man had been very close to him, but now moved away.