"Julian May - Trillium 2 - Blood Trillium" - читать интересную книгу автора (May Julian)

file:///F|/rah/Julian%20May/Julian%20May%20-%20Blood%20TrilliumUC.txt

1
s
pringtime and the end of the winter rains were long overdue that year in the world lit by the
Three Moons. Lingering monsoons had flooded the lowlands of the Peninsula and piled the snowdrifts
high round about the Tower of the Archimage on the southern slope of Mount Brom. And on the night
that the small fugitive named Shiki came, there was sleet.
The lammergeier that bore him through the shrieking gale was too weary and battered to use its
mental M>ice to call ahead to its fellows at the eyrie of the *u-chimage, so its arrival was a
dismaying surprise. The gigantic bird had no sooner landed upon the slippery Tower roof than it
collapsed and died, and the servants at the White Lady at first did not even see the burden it had
borne so steadfastly southward. All parts of the great black-and-white body save the wings, tail,
and head were 'тАв-eathed in a glaze of ice. The leather cloak of Shiki, fcmch had shielded him as
he crouched on the bird's back during the awful journey, was as stiff as armor and i!! but welded
to the huge corpse. The fugitive himself
Blood TVillium
was so near death that he lacked the strength to creep out of his shelter, and he might have
perished had the Archimage's voorkeepers not hastened to his rescue. They saw at once that he was
a man of the Mountain Folk, of the same aboriginal Vispi race as they themselves, but by dint of
his small stature obviously belonging to some unknown tribe.
"I am Shiki. I have news for the White Lady," he managed to say. "A terrible thing has happened in
the north countryтАФin Tuzamen. IтАФI must tell herтАФ"
Before he could say more, he fell bereft of his senses, dreaming of his dead wife and two dead
children. They seemed to beckon Shiki in his feverdream, urging him to join them in a golden realm
of peace and warmth where sacred Black Trilliums bloomed under cloudless skies.
How he longed to follow his loved ones there! To be freed at last from pain and the relentless
press of duty! But he had not yet delivered his portentous message, and so he begged the phantoms
to wait for him only a little while, until he fulfilled this last mission and informed the
Archimage of the great danger. Even as he spoke his family seemed to drift away smiling into a
bright mist. shaking their heads.
And when he woke, he knew he would live.
He found himself abed in a dim and cozy chamber, tucked beneath a fur coverlet and with both
frostbitten hands thickly swaddled in cloth. The small lamp beside the bed was strange, giving off
a bright yellow light from a kind of crystal, without any trace of flame. Freezing rain raided on
the window of the room, but the place was vers warm, even though there was no hearth or brazier of
coals to be seen. A subtle perfume filled the air. He struggled to sit up and saw on a table at
the foot of the bed a row of golden urns, and in them bloomed magical Black Tril-lium plants like
those he had seen in his dream.
Standing in the shadows beyond them was a tall woman. She was cloaked and hooded in a shimmering
white fabric that had fleeting blue glints like those in the ice of the great inland glaciers. Her
visage was hidden and
at first Shiki caught his breath in foreboding, for an aura of surpassing mystery and power seemed
to emanate from her, unmanning him and setting him trembling like a terrified child. He had
encountered a person having this kind of aura only once before, and he had nearly died of it.
The woman threw back her hood and came to his side. Gently, she pressed him back against the
pillows. "Do not be afraid," she said. The fearful aura seemed to recede then, and she appeared to
be only a handsome black-haired young femaleтАФhuman, not of the FolkтАФhaving eves of opalescent blue
with golden glints deep within, and a sweet mouth gravely smiling.
His fear changed to wild anxiety. Had his voor brought him to the wrong place after all? The