"Patricia A. McKillip - The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbrea" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKillip Patricia A)

light, hard blue of dawn during suns-crossing. Rich colors flashed out of him everywhere in her light:
from a gold knife-hilt and a brass pack buckle; from the red ties of his cloak that were weighted with
ivory, and the blue and silver threads in his gloves. His heavy fur cloak was closed, but she felt that if he
shifted, other colors would escape from it into the cold, dark air. At first she thought he must be ancient:
the taper-fire showed her a face that was shadowed and scarred, remote with strange experience, but no
more than a dozen years older than hers.
"Who are you?" she breathed. Nothing on Hoarsbreath glittered like that in midwinter; its colors were
few and simple: snow, damp fur and leather, fire, gold.
"I can't find my father," he said. "Lule Yarrow."
She stared at him, amazed that his colors had their beginnings on Hoarsbreath. "He's dead." His eyes
widened slightly, losing some of their hardness. "He fell in a crevice. They chipped him out of the ice at
suns-crossing, and buried him six years ago."
He looked away from her a moment, down at the icy ridges of tramped snow. "Winter." He broke the
word in two, like an icicle. Then he shifted his pack, sighing. "Do they still have wormspoor on this ice-
tooth?"
"Of course. Who are you?"
"Ryd Yarrow. Who are you?"
"Peka Krao."
"Peka. I remember. You were squalling in somebody's arms when I left."
"You look a hundred years older than that," she commented, still puzzling, holding him in her light,
though she was beginning to feel the cold. "Seventeen years you've been gone. How could you stand it,
being away from Hoarsbreath so long? I couldn't stand five years of it. There are so many people whose
names you don't know, trying to tell you about things that don't matter, and the flat earth and the blank
sky are everywhere. Did you come back to mine?"
He glanced up at the grey-white ceiling of the snow-tunnel, barely an inch above his head. "The sky
is full of stars, and the gold wake of dragon-flights," he said softly. "I am a Dragon-Harrower. I am
trained and hired to trouble dragons out of their lairs. That's why I came back here."
"Here. There are no dragons on Hoarsbreath." His smile touched his eyes like a reflection of fire
across ice. "Hoarsbreath is a dragon's heart."
She shifted, her own heart suddenly chilled. She said tolerantly. "That sounds like a marvellous tale
to me."
"It's no tale. I know. I followed this dragon through centuries, through ancient writings, through
legends, through rumors of terror and deaths. It is here, sleeping, coiled around the treasures of
Hoarsbreath. If you on Hoarsbreath rouse it, you are dead. If I rouse it, I will end your endless winter."
"I like winter." Her protest sounded very small, muted within the thick snow-walls, but he heard it.
He lifted his hand, held it lightly against the low ceiling above his head.
"You might like the sky beyond this. At night it is a mine of lights and hidden knowledge."
She shook her head. "I like close places, full of fire and darkness. And faces I know. And tales spun
out of wormspoor. If you come with me to the tavern, they'll tell you where your father is buried, and give
you lodgings, and then you can leave."
"I'll come to the tavern. With a tale."
 Her taper was nearly burned down, and she was beginning to shiver. "A dragon." She turned away
from him. "No one will believe you anyway."
"You do."
She listened to him silently, warming herself with wormspoor, as he spoke to the circle of rough, fire-
washed faces in the tavern. Even in the light, he bore little resemblance to his father, except for his broad
cheekbones and the threads of gold in his hair. Under his bulky cloak, he was dressed as plainly as any
miner, but stray bits of color still glinted from him, suggesting wealth and distant places.
"A dragon," he told them, "is creating your winter. Have you ever asked yourselves why winter on
this island is nearly twice as long as winter on the mainland twenty miles away? You live in dragon's