"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 2 - A Clash of Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

A Clash of Kings V1.0
Book Two of A song of Ice and Fire
By George R. R. Martin
Scanned 3/9/02 by sliph

PROLOGUE
The comet's tail spread across the dawn, a red slash that bled above the crags
of Dragonstone like a wound in the pink and purple sky.
The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here
the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles
that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern,
two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. When
first he came to Dragonstone, the army of stone grotesques had made him
uneasy, but as the years passed he had grown used to them. Now he thought of
them as old friends. The three of them watched the sky together with
foreboding.
The maester did not believe in omens. And yet . . . old as he was, Cressen had
never seen a comet half so bright, nor yet that color, that terrible color,
the color of blood and flame and sunsets. He wondered if his gargoyles had
ever seen its like. They had been here so much longer than he had, and would
still be here long after he was gone. If stone tongues could speak . . .
Such folly. He leaned against the battlement, the sea crashing beneath him,
the black stone rough beneath his fingers. Talking gargoyles and prophecies in
the sky. I am an old done man, grown giddy as a child again. Had a lifetime's
hard-won wisdom fled him along with his health and strength? He was a maester,
trained and chained in the great Citadel
of Oldtown. What had he come to, when superstition filled his head as if he
were an ignorant fieldhand?
And yet . . . and yet . . . the comet burned even by day now, while pale grey
steam rose from the hot vents of Dragonmont behind the castle, and yestermorn
a white raven had brought word from the Citadel itself, word long-expected but
no less fearful for all that, word of summer's end. Omens, all. Too many to
deny. What does it all mean? he wanted to cry.
"Maester Cressen, we have visitors." Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to
disturb Cressen's solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled his
head, he would have shouted. "The princess would see the white raven." Ever
correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of
a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. "Her fool is
with her."
The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his wyvern to steady
himself. "Help me to my chair and show them in."
Taking his arm, Pylos led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked
briskly, but he was not far from his eightieth name day now, and his legs were
frail and unsteady. Two years past, he had fallen and shattered a hip, and it
had never mended properly. Last year when he took ill, the Citadel had sent
Pylos out from Oldtown, mere days before Lord Stannis had closed the isle . .
. to help him in his labors, it was said, but Cressen knew the truth. Pylos
had come to replace him when he died. He did not mind. Someone must take his
place, and sooner than he would like . . .
He let the younger man settle him behind his books and papers. "Go bring her.