"McKinley, Robin - A Pool In The Desert" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

"There are eleven of us," he said, still gently. "We watch over the eleven Sandpales where the blood of the head of Maur sank into the earth after Aerin and Tor threw the evil thing out of the City and it burnt the forests and rivers of the Old Damar to the Great Desert in the rage of its thwarting. Much of the desert is quietЧas much as any desert is quietЧbut Tor, the Just and Powerful, set up our eleven stations where the desert is not quiet. The first is named the Citadel of the Raising of the Sands, and the second is the Citadel of the Parting of the Sands, and the third is the Citadel of the Breathing of the SandsЕ The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Watchers arc often called upon, for our Pales lie near the fastest way through the Great Desert, from Rawalthifan in the West to the plain that lies before the Queen's City itself. But IЧI have never Watched so badly before. Where did you come from?" he said again, and now she heard the frustration and distress in his voice. "Where do you come from, as if the storm itself had brought you?"
Faintly she replied: "I come from Roanshire, one of the south counties of the Homeland; I live in a town called Farbellow about fifteen miles southwest of Mauncester. We live above my father's furniture shop. And I still do not know where I am."
He answered: "I have never heard of Roanshire, or the Homeland, or Mauncester. The storm brought you far indeed. This is the land called Damar, and you stand at the fourth Sandpale at the edge of the Great Desert we call Kalar-sham."
And then there was a terrible light in her eyes like the sun bursting, and when she put her hands up to protect her face there was a hand on her shoulder, shaking her, and a voice, a familiar voice, saying, "Hetta, Hetta, wake up, are you ill?" But the voice sounded strange, despite its familiarity, as if speaking a language she used to know but had nearly forgotten. But she heard anxiety in the voice, and fear, and she swam towards that fear, from whatever far place she was in, for she knew the fear, it was hers, and her burden to protect those who shared it. Before she fully remembered the fear or the life that went with it, she heard another voice, an angry voice, and it growled: "Get the lazy lie-abed on her feet or it won't be a hand on her shoulder she next feels"Чit was her father's voice.
She gasped as if surfacing from drowning (the howl of the wind, the beating against her body, her face, she had been drowning in sand), and opened her eyes. She tried to sit up. to stand up, but she had come back too far in too short a span of time, and she was dizzy, and her feet wouldn't hold her. She would have fallen., except Ruth caught herЧit had been Ruth's hand on her shoulder, Ruth's the first voice she heard.
"Are you ill? Are you ill? I have tried to wake you beforeЧit is long past sunup and the storm has blown out. but there is a tree down that has broken our paling, and the front window of the shop. There are glass splinters and wood shavings everywhereЧyou could drown in them. Dad says Jeff and I won't go to school today, there is too much to do here, although I think two more people with dust-pans will only get in each other's way, but Jeff will somehow manage to disappear and be found hours later at his computer, so it hardly matters."
Hetta's hands were fumbling for her clothes before Ruth finished speaking. She still felt dizzy and sick, and disoriented; but the fear was well known and it knew what to do, and she was dressed and in the kitchen in a few minutes, although her hair was uncombed and her eyes felt swollen and her mouth tasted ofЕ sand. She went on with the preparations for breakfast as she had done many mornings, only half-registering the unusual noises below in the shop, habit held her, habit and fear, as Ruth's hands had held herЧ
ЧAs the strange cinnamon-skinned man's hands had held her.
After she loaded the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, she dared run upstairs and wash her face and brush her hairЕ Her hair felt stiff, dusty. She looked down at the top of her chest of drawers and the bare, swept wooden floor she stood on and sawЕ sand. It might have been wood dust carried by yesterday's storm wind; but no tree produced those flat, glinting fragments. She stared a moment, her hairbrush in her hand, and then laid the brush down, turned, and threw the sheets of her bed back.
Sand. More pale, glittery sand. Not enough to sweep together in a hand, but enough to feel on a fingertip, to hold up in the light and look again and again at the flash as if of infinitesimal mirrors.
She fell asleep that night like diving into deep water, but if she dreamed, she remembered nothing of it, and when she woke the next morning, there were no shining, mirror-fragment grains in her bedding. I imagined it, she thought. I imagined it allЧand it was the worst thought she had ever had in her life. She was dressed and ready to go downstairs and make breakfast, but for a moment she could not do it. Not even the knowledge of her father's certain wrath could make her leave her bedroom and face this day, any day, any day here, any other person, the people she knew best. She sat down on the edge of her bed and stared bleakly at nothing: into her life. But habit was stronger: it pulled her to her feet and took her downstairs, and, as it had done yesterday., led her hands and feet and body through their accustomed tasks. But yesterday had beenЧ yesterday. Today there was nothing in her mind but darkness.
She struggled against sleep that night, against the further betrayal of the dream. It had been something to do with the storm, she thought, twisting where she lay, the sheets pulling at her like ropes. Something to do with the air a storm brought: it had more oxygen in it than usual, or less, it did funny things to your mindЕ Some wind-roused ancient street debris that looked like sand had got somehow into her bed; some day, some day soon, but not too soon, she would ask Ruth if there had been grit in her bed too, the day after the big storm.
She took a deep breath: that smell, spicy, although no spice she knew; spice and rock and earth. She was lying on her back, and had apparently kicked free of the tangling sheets at lastЧno, there was still something wrapped around one ankleЧbut her limbs were strangely heavy, and she felt too weak even to open her eyes. But she would not sleep, she would not. A tiny breeze wandered over her face, bringing the strange smells to her; and yet her bedroom faced the street, and the street smelled of tarmac and car exhaust and dead leaves and Benny's Fish and Chips on the opposite corner.
She groaned, and with a great effort, managed to move one arm. Both arms lay across her stomach; she dragged at one till it flopped off to lie at her side, palm down. What was she lying on? Her fingertips told her it was not cotton sheet, thin and soft from many launderings. Her fingers scratched faintly; whatever this was, it was thick and yielding, and lay over a surface much firmer (her body was telling her) than her old mattress at home.
An arm slid under her shoulders and she was lifted a few inches, and a pillow slid down to support her head. Another smell, like brandy or whisky, although unlike eitherЧher gardener's mind registered steeped herbs and acknowledged with frustration it did not know what herbs. She opened her eyes but saw only shadows.
"Can you drink?"
She opened her mouth obediently, and a rim pressed against her lips and tilted. She took a tiny sip; whatever it was burned and soothed simultaneously. She swallowed, and heat and serenity spread through her. Her body no longer felt leaden, and her eyes began to focus.
She was in aЧa cave, with rocky sides and a sandy floor. There were niches in the walls where oil lamps sat. She knew that smoky, golden light from power cuts at home. When she had been younger and her great-grandfather's little town had not yet been swallowed up by Mauncester's suburbs, there had been power cuts often. That was when her mother still got out of bed most days, and her grandmother used to read to Hetta during the evenings with no electricity, saying that stones were the best things to keep the night outside where it belonged. Cleaning the old oil lamps and laying out candles and matches as she had done the night before last still made her hear her grandmother saying Once upon a timeЕ The only complaint Hetta had ever had about her grandmother's stones was that they rarely had deserts in them. Hetta had to blink her eyes against sudden tears.
A cave, she thought, a cave with a sand floor. She looked down at glinting mirror-fragments, like those she had found in the folds of her sheets two nights ago.
I have never heard of Roanshire or the Homeland, or Mauncester. The storm brought you far indeed. This is the land called Damar, and you stand at the fourth Sandpale at the edge of the Great Desert we call Kalarsham.
Her scalp contracted as if someone had seized her hair and twisted it. She gasped, and the cup was taken away and the arm grasped her more firmly. "You have drunk too much, it is very strong," said the voice at her ear; but it was not the liquor that shook her. She sat up and swung her feet round to put them on the floorЧthere was a bandage tied around one ankleЧthe supporting arm allowed this reluctantly. She turned her head to look at its owner and saw the man who had rescued her from the sandstorm two nights ago, in her dream. "Where am I?" she said. "I cannot be here. I do not want to go home. I have dreamed this. Oh, I do not want this to be a dream!"
The man said gently, "You are safe here. This is no dream-place, although you may dream the journey. It is as real as you are. It has stood hundreds of years and through many sandstormsЧalthough I admit this one is unusual even in the history of this sanctuary."
"You don't understand," she began, and then she laughed a little, miserably: she was arguing with her own dream-creature.
He smiled at her. "Tell me what I do not understand. What I understand is that you nearly died, outside, a little while ago. because your Watcher almost failed to see you. This is enough to confuse anyone's mind. Try not to distress yourself. Have another sip of the tiarhk. It is good for such confusions, and such distress."
She took the cup from him and tasted its contents again. Again warmth and tranquility slid through her, but she could feel her own nature fighting against them, as it had when the doctor had prescribed sleeping pills for her a few years ago. She had had to stop taking the pills. She laced her fingers round the cup and tried to let the tiarhk do its work. She took a deep breath. The air was spicy sweet, and again she felt the little stir of breeze; where was the vent that let the air in and kept the dangerous sand-tides out?
"Tell me a little about this place," she said.
He sat back, willing to allow her time to compose herself. "This is the fourth of the Eleven Sandpales that King Tor the Just and Powerful set round the Great Desert Kalarsham some years after the battle of the Hero's Crown and the second and final death of Maur, when it became evident that no easy cure for the desert would be found and that Damar's ancient forest was gone forever, and Geljdreth, the sand-god, would rule us if we let him. This Fourth Pale is called Horontolopar in the Old Tongue, and I am its Watcher, Zasharan, fifteenth of that line, for it was my father's mother's mother's father's"Чhis voice fell into a singsong and she did not count, but she guessed he named fourteen forebears exactlyЧ"mother, who was first called Zasharanth, and installed by Tor himself, and kissed by Queen Aerin, who wished her luck forever. And we have had luck"Чhe took a deep sighЧ"even tonight, for 1 did find you, though it was a narrow thing. Much too narrow. I would like you to tell me more about Roan-shire, and Mauncester, where you are from, and how you came to be in such state, for no guide would have led or sent you so, and my eye tells me you were alone."
"Your eye?" she said.
"My Eye," he replied, and this time she heard. "I will show you, if you wish. The Eye may see more to this puzzle that you are: how it is that a sandstorm should have come from nowhere to bring you, and yet pursue you across my doorstep so viciously that the wound it laid open on your leg took eight stitches to close. My Eye lies in the place where I Watch, and it is much of how I do what I am here to do. It is only Aerin's Luck that I looked tonight, for this is an unsettled season, and no one has set out from Thaar in weeks. Perhaps you did not come from Thaar."
She laughed, although it hurt her. "No, I did not come from Thaar. AndЧ and I have gone awayЧand come back. The stormЧyou brought me here two nights ago."
He looked at her calmly. "You have not been here above an hour. You fainted, and I took the opportunity to dress your leg. Then you woke."
She was silent a moment. Her head swam, and she did not think another sip of tiarhk was advisable. "Are you alone here?"
He looked astonished. "Alone? Certainly not. Rarely does anyone else come to this end of the citadel, for I am the Watcher, and no other has reason to know of the desert door I brought you through. But there are some few of us, and the caves run far up into the Hills, and where they come out there is the filanon town Sunbarghon, although you would not find it unless they decided to allow you to, and Ynorkgindal, where they ring the Border, that the music of their bells may help keep us safe from the North, and the dlor Gzanforyar, which is mastered by my good friend Rohk. Perhaps you will meet him one dayЧ" He blinked and gave a tiny shiver, and said, "Forgive me, lady, that was presumptuous."
She shook her head. "I should like to meet him," she said, but she heard in her voice that she believed there would be no such meeting. Zasharan heard it too, and turned his face a little away from her, and she saw how stiffly he sat. Her first thought was that she had offended him, but she remembered, Forgive me, lady, that was presumptuous, and before she could think, had reached to touch his arm. "But I would like to meet your friend, and see the caves, and your Eye, andЧ" She stopped. How long would the dream last this time?
He turned back to her. "There is something strange about you, 1 know that, and I seeЧI think I seeЧIЧ" He looked down at her hand on his arm, which she hastily removed. "You trouble me, lady. May I have your name?"
"Hetta," she said.
"Hetthar," he said. "Do you think you can stand, and walk? Do you wish food first? For I would like you to come to the place of my Eye, where 1 think you and I may both be able to see more plainly."
"I am not hungry," she said, and tried to stand; but as she did, her head swam, and Zasharan and the room began to fade, and she began to smell wood shavings and wet tarmac. "The sand!" she cried. "The sand!" And just before she lost consciousness, she flung herself on the floor of Zasharan's cave, and scrabbled at the sand with her hands.
She woke lying on her back again, her hands upon her stomach, but her hands were shut into fists, and the backs of them hurt up into her forearms., as if she had been squeezing them closed for a long time. With some difficulty she unbent the fingers, and two tiny palmfuls of sand poured out upon her nightdress. Slowly, slowly she sat up, pulling up folds of her nightdress to enclose the sand. She stood, clutching the front of her nightdress together, and went to her chest of drawers. She had been allowed to move into this room, which had been her grandmother's, when her grandmother died, but she had always been too busyЧ or too aware of herself as interloperЧto disarrange any of her grandmother's things that weren't actively in her way. But they were friendly things, and once the first shock of grief was over, she liked having them there, reminding her of her gran, and no longer wondered if it might be disrespectful to keep them as they were. On the top of the chest there was an assortment of little lidded boxes and jars that had once held such things as bobby pins and cotton balls and powder, and were now empty. She chose one and carefully transferred the sand into it. She stood looking at its lid for a moment. She had chosen this one because it had a pretty curl of dianthus flower and leaf painted on its surface; her gran's dianthus still bloomed in the garden. She lifted the lid to reassure herself that the sand was still thereЧthat it hadn't disappeared as soon as she closed the boxЧand for a moment, faint but unmistakable, she smelled the spicy smell of Zasharan's cave, and tiarhk.
When she dreamt of nothing again that night, she almost didn't care. When she woke up, she looked in the tiny box on her chest of drawers and the sand was still there on this second morning, and then she went downstairs to get breakfast. Today was her day to drive to the mall. Usually, if her list was not too long, she could spare an hour for herself. And today she wanted to go to the library.
It took more time to get to the mall than usual; she had had to go the long way round their block because of the fallen tree that still lay in the broken remains of their front paling, and there were other trees down elsewhere that the exhausted and overburdened county council had not yet cut up and hauled away. In one place the road had caved in where a flash flood had undermined it. There were detours and orange warning cones and temporary stoplights, and when she finally got there, some of the car park at the mall was blocked off. She'd have barely half an hour at the library, and only if she pelted through the rest first.
She didn't go to the library very often any more, since she had had to stop school. She didn't have much time for reading, and she couldn't think of any book she wanted to read: both fiction and nonfiction only reminded her of what she wasn't doing and might never do. She did read seed catalogues, intensely, from cover to cover, every winter, and the off-beat gardening books and even more bizarre popular science books Ruth bought her every birthday and Christmas, which, because Ruth had bought them, were friendly instead of accusing. The library felt like a familiar place from some other life. There were calluses on her hands that scraped against the pages that hadn't been there when she had been coming here several times a week.
None of the encyclopedias had any listings for Damar, nor the atlases, and she didn't have time to queue for a computer. They had added more computes since she had been here last, but it hadn't changed the length of the queue. She went reluctantly to the help desk. Geography had never been a strong suit., and by the time she was standing in front of the counter, she felt no more than ten and a good six inches shorter. "ErЧhave you ever heard of a place called Damar?" The librarian's eyes went first to the row of computers, all occupied, and she sighed. She looked up at Hetta. "Yes," said Hetta. "I've tried the encyclopedias and atlases."
The librarian smiled faintly, then frowned. "Damar. I don't recallЧwhat do you know about it?"
It has eleven Sandpales and a Watcher named Zasharan at the fourth. "Urn-ItЧit has a big desert in it, which used to be ancient forest." The librarian raised her eyebrows. "It'sЧit's a crossword puzzle clue," said Hetta, improvising hastily. "It'sЧit's a sort of bet."
The librarian looked amused. She tapped Damar into the computer in front of her. "Hmm. Try under Daria. Oh yesЧDamar," she said, looking interested. "1 rememberЕ oh dear. If you want anything recent, you will have to consult the newspaper archive." She looked suddenly hunted. "There's a bit of a, hmm, gapЕ up till five years ago, everything is on microfiche, and in theory everything since is available on the computer system but, well, it isn't, you knowЕ Let me know if I can findЕ if I can try to find anything for you." She looked at Hetta with an expression that said full body armour and possibly an oxygen tank and face-mask were necessary to anyone venturing into the newspaper archive.
"Thank you," said Hetta demurely, and nearly ran back to the reference room; her half hour was already up.
Daria. The Darian subcontinent in southwestern Asia comprises a large land-mass including both inland plains, mostly desert with irregular pockets of fertile ground, between its tall and extensive mountain ranges, and a long curved peninsula of gentler and more arable country in the southЕ Its government is a unique conception, being both the Republic of Damar under its own people and a Protectorate of the Homeland Empire and legislated by her appointed officers. See text articlesЕ V
Damar. It existed.
She had been nearly an hour at the library. She ran out to the car park and banged the old car into gear in a way it was not at all used to. It gave a howl of protest but she barely heard it. Damar. It existed!