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

Dughall put a hand on her arm. "Don't damage those," he said. "I've had them a long time."
She opened her eyes and stared at him. "Did you hear me?"
"Of course I heard you. You didn't expect him to stay in Calimekka, did you? Think what would have happened to him if he'd been found here."
"But he's gone."
"For now. Things change, Kait. He's alive and you're alive, and life and hope ever embrace."
She straightened her shoulders. "Yes. And meanwhile, I'm ready."
"I hope so," he said. Then he smiled at her. "I'm sure you are. I simply wish it didn't come as such a shock, that first moment."
"I don't see why. You've warned me about it."
He chuckled. "Words are not the thing itself. If they were, life would be so much simpler. Well, we might as well begin. Close your
eyes and breathe deeply. And hold those damned coins still. That racket you're making will drive me mad."
She stilled her nervous hands, and the warm coins settled against her skin.
"With your eyes closed, look upward, as if you were looking at the top of your forehead from the inside."
She did as he asked and felt suddenly dizzy, as if she were falling backward. Her pulse thudded in her ears, and the world began to feel far away. .
"You are at a crossroads," he told her. "At this branching of the
road, you choose to live either for yourself or for others. Down the road of self, there are many other paths that can bring you back to this point if you so desire, and there are many other ways to serveтАФbut once your feet are set upon the Falcon road, there is no turning back. Listen to the voice of your heart and the voice of your soul, asking if this is the road you should follow."
Her knees hurt from kneeling on the hard tiles. The small of her back ached, and her shoulders felt cramped, and she wanted to move around, but Dughall had impressed in her the importance of maintaining her kneeling position throughout the whole of the ceremony. "It will keep you from getting hurt," he'd saidтАФshe'd thought that cryptic, and still wondered what he'd meant. Still uncomfortable with the god Vodor Imrish, she prayed to the gods of Ibera for a sign that the path she sought would be the right one. She listened, but her thoughts refused to still, and any answer she received from the gods was buried in her mind's noisy chatter.
After what seemed to her a very long, uncomfortable, and unprofitable time, Dughall said, "With your eyes still closed, hold your arms out and drop the coins on the zanda, asking for guidance from Vodor Imrish as you do."
She raised her arms and let the coins fallтАФthey hit the silk with a musical clatter. Then she waited.
Dughall said nothing for a long time.
Then he said, "The Fates would have plans for you no matter which road you choose. You are marked to change your worldтАФ marked to touch the lives of those around youтАФmarked to carry a burden from the old era into the new one, but always in secret. You will never be acclaimed a hero by the masses, you will never rule in name, you will never receive praise or thanks for your many sacrifices, though you will be a hero, and you will rule in fact, and you will make great sacrifices throughout your lifetime that will be deserving of great praise. Your life, no matter which road you take, will bear the scars of hardship and want, of pain and loss, and of great regret. You will lose a great friend, and regain a great love." He sighed. "And from all I see
before me, the Falcons need you more than you will ever need them. Vodor Imrish watches you with interest and some admiration, because you have chosen never to lean on the comfort or promises of the gods, and have proven time and again that you can make your way without them. Not all lives are bound to the godsтАФyours is not and never will be, and though you may ally yourself with Vodor Imrish, you will always be a comrade, not a worshiper."
She maintained her posture, eyes closed and focused upward, try-
ing to puzzle out from Dughall's words whether he was telling her that she should join the Falcons or shouldn't. They needed her more than she needed them. She was destined to rule, but in secret. She was destined to heroism, but in secret. She was to be the comrade of the gods, not a worshiper. She would lose a friend and regain a love.
Oracles annoyed her. She wished that they could offer advice not couched in confusion. She would have liked Dughall to read the zanda and tell her, The gods decree you are to be a Falcon, or conversely, The gods decree that you are not. Simple, direct, clear.
"I choose the Falcon path," she said at last. No oracle had con-vinced her, no god had whispered in her ear, and even her soul had failed to offer her compelling reasons for saying yea or nayтАФin the end, she decided simply because she believed that the Falcons had much to offer the world even without the promise of Paranne, and she wished to add her strength to their numbers.
"Open your eyes, then, and tell me again, for no path should be chosen with eyes closed."
"I choose the Falcon path."
"Then repeat after me," Dughall said.
"I offer all that is mine to give: ka-ereaтАФmy will; ka-ashuraтАФmy blood; ka-amiaтАФmy flesh; ka-enaddaтАФmy breath; ha-obbeaтАФmy soul..."
He paused, and Kait repeated the words after him, feeling weight building in the silence around them. As she enunciated the final ka, she felt a presence in the room with them, eyes that watched out of the edges of shadows, ears that listened from a place outside of time.
Dughall continued.
"And that which is mine I will offer only, Now and ever.
I will not partake of the ka of others, Nor benefit from ka so taken. 1 will do no harm by magic, Either through my action or my inaction, But if harm is inevitable, I will choose the path of least harm And the most good, Knowing that I am fallible And that if the path is not clear, 1 may err."
Each time he paused and she repeated, the sense of presence grew stronger. She smelled the cold clean scent of fresh-falling snow and felt behind her eyes a vast plain unfolding. Unfamiliar terrain in her mind. Places she had never seen, never imagined, with pathsтАФwell troddenтАФleading off in all directions toward unmarked, unknowable destinations . . . destinations fraught with danger.
"I will carry the weight of my errors On my own soul, And bear such punishments As magic and the gods mete out On my own flesh."
And there the bite of the oath. That mistakes, even mistakes innocently made and with the best of intentions, would stay with her.
She could not confer blame or punishment; neither could she escape them. Her mistakes would be hers alone, always. Always.
She could accept that. She had borne the consequences of her own actions all of her lifeтАФperhaps not happily, but the oath did not demand of her that she rejoice in punishment. Only that she take it on herself, not pass it off to innocent others. She breathed in and out slowly and repeated the words, feeling the metallic taste of them on her tongue. And as she finished the last word, a light sprang up between her and Dughall, a soft, cold white flame that flickered on every metal object in the room, casting slender, dancing shadows all around.
Dughall's eyebrows rose, but he kept going.
"I will not oppress by magic, Nor be party to such oppression, Nor view such oppression and fail To act in the benefit of the oppressed, Though it cost me all that I have And all that I am; For I will hold life sacred, Both flesh life and soul life."
She repeated her promise, and the fire grew into a blaze, and somehow, though its color did not change and though it shed no physical heat, it seemed warmer. The scent of snow still hung in the room, and her skin still felt like ice, but somewhere in the back of her mind, a word whispered of spring, and the dancing of buds in an early morning breeze, and the fall of apple blossoms like snow across green meadows, and the rolling of the sea, and salt air sharp and biting against her face . . . and somewhere, somewhere, green and growing and lush and rich with decay and rebirth, her own beloved jungles, riotous with life, steadily green, fecund, powerful. Her own power, her own memories, to add to those odd and frightening memories of stangers, her own essence to add to the stream, for every bit of water
that flows changes the shape of the river, and her life, her presence, would carve out a bit of bank, wear away the corner of a pebble, feed the roots of a tree, and she would pass on, changed, too.
She felt all of that within breathe in and breathe out, and felt, too, a sense of belonging that was alien to her very soul.
You are us, we are you.
And Dughall, clearing his throat, starting, stopping, starting again, pain in his face, but also wonderтАФand certainly he felt what she felt, the touch of the river that welcomed her into its flow. Changes came alreadyтАФshe felt them against her skin, inside her blood, in the chirring of the tiny bones within her ears.
"And ... I will hold fast To the vision of Solander, That all people are bound together by love Now and forever. I will hold Paranne Within my heart.
For if it must be a dream withheld, Still it is a star by which I may steer my life."
New words, a new promise, a new branching of the stream, and she said the words and the blaze filled the room, blotting out all vision, and the river embraced her and the water flowed in that new way, to that new place that still went to the sea. Life, the sea . . . and blinded by the flame that was a thousand years of lives and deaths, her mind showed her bloodshed and childbirth and parade and battleground and hearthfire; her skin felt gentle kiss and thrust of passion and stab of blade and lash of whip; her ears rang with song and whisper and he and scream; her tongue tasted poison and feast and thin gruel; her heart knew fury and vengeance and comfort and love.
And acceptance. She was not alone. Never again alone. She was part of life, and had always been, but now she was the river and not
the riverbank. Now she was shaper and not shaped. Now she was found, who had never known before how deeply lost she had been in the corridors of her own mind. You are us, we are you.