"Julian May - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

Stergos watched them go, trying to recall their names. But thoughts of what he must say and must not say in the upcoming wind-
conversation with Vra-Mattis, the novice Brother assigned to Snudge, distracted him, and he gave up the effort as he fitted the key into its
massive lock.




two
Drumming. Drumming. Drumming.

Dom dom tтАЩpat-a-pat pomтАж dom.

The sound coming from the little hut beyond the byre was soft but still audible in every room of the arctic steadingтАЩs main house,
repeating the same simple percussive figure, continuing hour after hour for nearly two days, longer than ever before. Sometimes the beat
would falter, the timing spoiled because of inattention or the fatigue of the drummerтАЩs aged wrists and fingers; but after a painful pause
the rhythmic sound always began again.

Dobnelu the sea-hag was having a particularly difficult time crossing the barrier this time. She could not recall how many false starts
sheтАЩd made. Even a single mistake in the three thousand measured patterns of drumming meant going back to the beginning, but it was
unthinkable that she abandon the effort. Not even her dire premonition about the woman and the boy who were her special charges must
tempt her to give up. Red Ansel Pikan and Thalassa Dru were waiting beneath the ice. Needing her.

And so was the One Denied the Sky.

Dobnelu could only join them in the starless world by means of the drum-trance, a ritual not especially difficult for Tarnian shamans in
the prime of life, but an excruciating ordeal for a woman whose years numbered over fourscore and ten.

Dom dom tтАЩpat-a-pat pomтАж dom.

Eyes shut tightly against the brightness of Midsummer Eve, resolutely gripping the bone drumsticks in her gnarled hands, Dobnelu the
sea-hag forced herself to go on.

==========

The maidservant Rusgann and the boy were somehow able to sleep through the maddening sound of the drumming, but Maudrayne
Northkeep always remained conscious of it, even when she slipped into and out of a troubled half doze. In disjointed prayers, she begged
for an end to the infernal noise.


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 May, Julian - Boreal Moon 2 - Ironcrown Moon



At last, as always, the end did come. The drumbeats ceased abruptly after a single climactic DOM. There was a sudden silence, broken
only by the bleating of a goat in the meadow. The hag had succeeded in opening the door to that other place again. SheтАЩd entered and so
left her prisoners free of her supervision for at least a day, perhaps even two.

Maudrayne pushed aside the opaque curtain of her cupboard-bed and descended on the stepstool, naked except for the ornate golden
necklace with the three great opals that she never took off, her uncle SerninтАЩs precious wedding gift that she had worn on the night she