"Arms Of The Kraken" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN


THE ARMS OF THE KRAKEN


THE PROPHET


Aeron Damphair was drowning men on Great Wyk when they came to tell him that the king was dead.


It was a bleak cold morning, and the sea was as leaden as the sky. The first three men had offered their lives to the Drowned God fearlessly, but the fourth was weak in faith, and began to struggle as his lungs cried out for air. Standing waist deep in the surf, Aeron seized the naked boy by the shoulders and pushed his head back down as he tried to snatch a breath. "Have courage." he said. "We came from the sea, and to the sea we must return. Open your mouth and drink deep of god's blessing. Fill your lungs with water, that you may die and be reborn. It does no good to fight."


Either the boy could not hear him with his head beneath the waves, or else his faith had utterly deserted him. He began to kick and thrash so wildly that Aeron had to call for help. Four of his drowned men waded out to seize the wretch and hold him under water. "Lord God who drowned for us," the priest prayed, in a voice as deep as the sea, "let Emmond your servant be reborn From the sea, as you were. Bless him


with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel."


Finally it was done. No more air was bubbling from his mouth, and all the strength had gone out of his limbs. Face


down in the shallow sea floated Lmmond, pale and cold and peaceful.


That was when Ihe Damphair realized that three horsemen had joined his drowned men on the pebbled shore. Aeron knew The Sparr, a hatchet-faced old man with watery eyes whose quavery voice was law on this part of Great Wyk, His son Steffarion accompanied him, with another youth whose dark red fur-lined cloak was pinned at Ihe shoulder with a ornate brooch that showed the black-and~gold warhorn of the Goodbrothers. One of Gorold's sons, the priest decided at a glance. Three tall sons had been born to Goodbrother's wife late in We, after a dozen daughters, and it was said that no man could tell one son from the others. Aeron Damphair did not deign to try. Whether this be Greydon or Gormond or Gran, the priest had no time for him.


He growled a brusque command, and his drowned men seized the dead boy by his arms and legs to carry him above the tideline. The priest followed, naked but for a sealskin clout that covered his private parts. Goosefleshed and dripping he splashed back onto land, across cold wet sand and sea-scoured pebbles. One of his drowned men handed him a robe of heavy roughspun dyed in mottled greens and blues and greys, the colors of the sea and the


Drowned God. Aeron donned the robe and pulled his hair free. Black and wet, that hair; no blade had touched it since the sea had raised him up. ll draped his shoulders like a ragged, ropy cloak, and fell down past his waist. Aeron wove strands of seaweed through it, and through his tangled, uncut beard.


His drowned men formed a circle around Ihe dead boy, praying. Norjen worked his arms whilst Rus knell astride him. pumping on his chest, but all moved aside for Aeron. He pried apart the boy's cold lips with his fingers, and gave Emmond the kiss of life, and agait and again, until the sea camл tfirehinji from his mouth. The boy began to cough and spit, and his eyes blinked open, full of fear.


Another one returned It was a sign of the Drowned God's favor, men said. Every other priest lost a man from time to lime, even Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, who had once been thought so holy that he was picked to crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy. He was the Damphair, who had seen the god's own watery halls and returned to tell of it. "Rise," he told the sputtering boy, as he slapped him on his naked back. "You have drowned and been returned lo us. What is dead can never die."


"But rises." The boy coughed violently, bringing up more water. "Rises


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again." Every word was bought with pain, but that was the way of the world; a man must fight to live. "Rises again." Emmond staggered to his feet. "Harder. And stronger."