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

Jaim stared into his eyes, and Dughall became aware of the point of a sword pressed lightly against his back, high on the left rib cage. A downward thrust would shove it through his heart and kill him in an instant. He recalled his peril and realized its extent as he saw the doubt and the distrust in the eyes of the man who held his life in a word.
Jaim's hands trembled. He nibbled at the corner of his lower lip. He stared at Dughall as if staring could strip away the skin and bone and reveal the shape of the soul beneath. "Tell me something that only you and I would know," he said.
Dughall took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He shook his head. "That wouldn't work. Dafril's soul would have had immediate access to my memories. He could tell you anything I could."
Jaim frowned. A spot of blood appeared on that lower lip, quickly licked away. Abruptly he laughed and looked up at the guard. "He's Dughall," he said, and the pressure of the sword at Dughall's back vanished.
Dughall nodded. "I am. But how could you be sure?" Jaim said, "Dafril would have told me something to convince me he was you, in order to save his life as quickly as possible. Only you would say something that wouldn't give me any reassurance at all."
In the viewing glass, Hasmal was smiling through blood and pain. "You're the rightful owner of the body, aren't you?" he was saying.
Dughall felt he could relax. Hasmal would be taken care of by the grateful man who had gotten his life back. Meanwhile, he, Dughall, could take the time to find out what had happened to him. He stretched and pulled his hands away from the viewing glass that still showed images of Hasmal. "Tell me how I got my strength back."
Jaim glanced at the old woman still lying where Yanth and the healer had dragged her. "Alarista knew she couldn't take on the Dragon who was torturing Hasmal and win. So she fed her youth and
her strength to you. You look like you're in your late thirties or early forties now."
Dughall looked at his handsтАФreally looked at themтАФfor the first time since he woke up. The skin was smooth; the arthritis that had bent his knuckles sideways and swelled them into knots was gone. He made a fist and saw the muscle below the webbing between his thumb and index, finger bulge, big as a mouse. The air flowing into and out of his lungs moved slowly and easily. His spine felt straight and strong, and no dull throb of pain grabbed at him when he arched his back or turned his head. And lust coursed through his veins and filled his groin with urgent hunger.
He was young again.
And Alarista was old.
He twisted around and stared at the wasted body and wrinkled face of the woman across the tent. That was Alarista? She had sacrificed herself to save Hasmal; had torn most of the years of her life away and gifted them to him. He tried to conceive of a love that would do thatтАФin all his years, he had known and desired and enjoyed many women, but he had never found the one woman for whom he would move the world.
He envied her the power of her passion, and realized in the same instant that he could not keep the gift that she had given him. He had to return her life to her, though he didn't know how.
He turned back to the viewing glass as he heard Hasmal say, "Will you cut me loose? I need a healer."
"You don't know who I am, do you?"
Through the eyes of the man Dughall had just restored to his life, Dughall saw Hasmal shake his head. "Someone who appreciates having his body back, I hope."
The man watching Hasmal laughed, and Dughall's attention snapped fully back to the viewing glass. He shuddered at the sound of that laugh. It was wrong. Cruel. It would have sounded right coming from DafrilтАФbut Dughall knew he'd banished Dafril to the ring in
front of him. Which suggested that the man whose body Dafril had claimed had been evil, too.
"You have no idea how grateful 1 am," the man told Hasmal. "There I was, ready to do wondrous things, and suddenly that lying Dragon ripped me from my body and threw my soul into the Veil. I wasn't dead, but I wasn't alive, either. Things hunt between the worldsтАФdid you know that? Vast cold monstrous hungers that seek out the bright lights of souls trapped in their lightless void so that they can devour them. Annihilate them. Other souls were trapped there with meтАФI watched darkness swallow some of them. They're gone forever. I barely evaded that same fate twice. Twice. Being trapped in the infinite blackness of void, hunted by roving nightmares-made-real. facing eternal extinction at any momentтАФI still don't know if there's a true hell, but the horrors of that place will do for me. You, or rather the one you summoned, pulled me out of that."
He'd been watching Hasmal's face while he talked, moving closer step by slow step. Twice he'd glanced at the knife in his hand.
His words created an image of gratitude, but some edge to his voice spoke of darker emotions. "You and your unseen friend have powerful magic at your disposal. You're Falcons, aren't you?"
Hasmal's face showed that he had heard that edge, too. He nod-ded, but warily.
"Working with Ry Sabir."
Another slow nod.
"I thought as much. Ry's my cousin."
Hasmal tried a cautious smile, but it died on his face.
"Good guess," the man said. "We weren't friends, Ry and I. My name is Crispin Sabir. Perhaps you've heard Ry speak of me?" A soft chuckle. "I see from your expression that you have, and that Ry was careful to tell you all my best points."
Dughall's fists clenched into tight balls. Crispin Sabir. Of all the Sabirs Dughall had encountered in his years of service to the Galweigh Family, Crispin was the closest thing to incarnate evil he had ever encountered. Hasmal couldn't have fallen into worse hands.
"I helped you," Hasmal said.
"Well, yes. Undeniably. But I don't give that fact much weight. I'm grateful to have my body backтАФplease don't think I'm not. But you were only trying to save your own life when you summoned your friend."
"Are you going to let me go?" Hasmal asked. Crispin Sabir was quiet for a long time. A very long time. Dughall felt his muscles ache with the tension of waiting. Beside him, he heard Jaim's shallow breathing, and movement as Yanth crouched at his left shoulder.
"You're a Falcon. My magic can't touch you. You're shielded somehowтАФI can't even see the shield, but I can feel its effects. 1 can't control you. I can't make you work for me. If I set you free, nothing I could do would guarantee that you won't turn on me." "My wordтАФ"
"I have no love for the trappings of honor, you. I've given my own word countless times, and have broken it in the next breath. Expediency rules honorтАФyou know this and I know it, and I would have it no other way. But because that is true, your word is no currency I'd care to spend."
"I've done nothing to harm you."
"Not that I know of. I grant you that. But you can't guarantee that you won't do something to harm me in the future."
Hasmal grimaced. "I swear on Vodor Imrish, my wordтАФ" he started to say again, and again Crispin cut him off.
"No. Don't waste your breath or my time. I must do something with you. You might make a good prisoner or fetch a decent ransom. But I doubt that any ransom I could get from you would be worth the trouble you would cause me."
Jaim asked, "Can't you do something? Travel back through the viewing-glass linkтАФforce that Sabir bastard to let him go?"
Dughall gritted his teeth. "Falcon magic cannot coerce. It is purely defensive. Most times, that's enough. But Crispin Sabir is the rightful
soul in his own bodyтАФI cannot do anything that will force him from the choices he makes of his own free will."
Dughall felt fingers tighten around his arm, and he turned from the viewing glass to find Yanth a mere hand's breadth from his face. "Dragon magic could force him. Wolf magic could force him."
Dughall rested a hand atop Yanth's and willed himself to calm, -creed. But I am neither Dragon nor Wolf. I am Falcon, and sworn to follow the path of Falconry As is Hasmal."
"You have to save him," Jaim said. "Alarista gave you her life so that you could save him."
Dughall turned to face Jaim. "Perhaps I could save his body, but it would be at the price of my soul, and his. Jaim, if he chose to turn away from the Falcon path, he could, perhaps, save his own life. Instead, he holds his shields in place and so protects his soul."
"Save him," Yanth snarled.
"There are things worse than death," Dughall said softly. "Things more terrifying, more painful. And far more lasting."
"You quaking coward," Yanth said. He started to draw his sword. In a flash, three guards' blades pointed at the young swordsman's throat. Yanth glared at them and turned to Dughall. He said, "If I could, I'd cut you a spine, you jellyfish."
In the viewing glass, Dughall saw Crispin rest his blade against the rope that held Hasmal's left wrist. He had moved closer to the trapped Falcon. He said, "Perhaps I ought to let you go. I wonder if you would be as grateful for your freedom as I am for mine."
Hasmal suddenly smiled and said, "Dughall, hear me. I want more time. I am not done here."