"Andrew J. Offutt - Cormac 01 - The Mists of Doom" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

somehow pieced together the story of a heinous plot by High-king and priest... and the story of young
Cormac. His work does shame on scholars and historians (whom in truth I have caught out in errors, in my
own researchesтАФwhile doubtless making errors of my own).
Geo. and I were already in contact, and I am the chronicler and supposed expert. To me he sent his
accountтАФand two copies of his pages and pages of notes. Pleading gross ignorance of Gaelic, I asked him
to compile it all into a sort of narrative, in outline form. (We agreed to leave out The Matter of the QueenтАЩs
Chamber, and the Story of the Twelve Picts, as being surely fanciful, apocryphal additions by later
enthusiasts.)
Proctor complied, and once I had rewritten his outline I obtained his approval of that version. It was also
patiently explained to me that тАЬCeannтАЭ is not тАЬSeanтАЭ but simply Ken and that the тАЬfamily nameтАЭ of the
Leinsterish royal house, Ceannselaigh, would be pronounced simply KEN-sley. He also confirmed the name
тАЬConanтАЭ: it is very old Irish, as are Crom and indeed the word amra, which means eulogy. Howard did like his
CeltsтАФI mean, Kelts.
The volume, then, is my narrative based on an outline by Geo. W. Proctor of Tay-has, and we are all indebted
to him.
Andrew J. OffuttтАФKentucky, U.S.A.


Prologue:
The Walker in the Fog
Though the rain had ceased just before sundown, the clouds remained. The setting Eye of Behl rayed its gold
and crimson across a sky of greys and deep slate. The spectacular effect lasted only a few minutes ere the
sun was gone and the sky became a wash of slate and indigo and the absolute black of onyx. Night ruled.
The imposing buildings standing aloofly apart atop the hill called Tara were become but shadows, some
limned darkly against the sky, others spectrally pale.
Fog and mist were permanent inhabitants of this land, which they and the forests had owned long before the
coming of the Fir Bholgs, and then the Tuatha de Danann, and finally the Celts. It crawled the ground now, so
that the peasantish houses huddled so closely all about the base of the hill were as if aswim in the cold fog.
Some indeed were invisible beneath their dripping roofs of wattle and sod. No women or children were abroad,
and few men. Even so close past sunset, many were already abed, for wakeful life and the work of the day
began with BehlтАЩs eastward appearance each morn, when pearl and nacre displaced the dark of night and
were followed by rich gold. Thus came daily the manifestation of the god of the Celts, whether they abode
here in this land, or over in Gallic or Frankish lands. For not yet had the new god, him of the Jews and then of
Rome on which the sun had set, usurped the ancient power of Bel, or, depending upon where he was
worshiped, Baal, or Beal, or BaтАЩal or Behl.
This night, strangely, the fog rose up the hill among the houses of the nobles and even among the rath
structures of the righ-danna, the many who in this way or that claimed kinship to the Ard-righ, the High-king.
Aye, on this haunted night the fog eddied and crept even about that most noble lordтАЩs own abode, the
rig-thig.
Through it, his feet and robed legs vanishing into the ever-moving gray, walked a man who neither strode nor
strolled. Hooded he was, rendered bodiless by the robe and faceless by the night. Almost silently, picking his
way with a long holly staff, he moved toward his goal.
A peasant, in leggings and leathern stockings, a patched brown cloak and flapped cap of hareskin, touched
his forehead when his path downward crossed that of the robed man ascending; the former was late wending
homeward from the house of his lord who had spoken not complimentarily to him of the peasantтАЩs care for his
granary, for it was unpatched and the cats were hard-worked and fat from the catching of invading mice.
тАЬLord Druid,тАЭ the peasant said by way of greeting, and no more, and kept walking.
Nor did the druid in the hooded robe, the deep green of the forest, speak or otherwise acknowledge the
respectful greeting. He but climbed on, a bottle-green phantom in the night of darkness and fog-damp and
dripping eaves. His staff of holly made tiny sucking noises when he drew it up with each pace.