"Over_9780307446138_oeb_c08_r1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jeffrey Overstreet - Cynderes Midnight)

But then the ale boy’s dream took a turn, coming alive with memories of how he had ended up here, in this prison cell at Tilianpurth.

A merchant had wanted to buy from him a bundle of Auralia’s unfinished work. But the boy had insisted there was nothing to compare with Auralia’s colors in all of the Expanse. How could he possibly trade them for lesser riches?

The answer displeased the merchant so much that a knife sprang into their exchange.

Fearing for his life, the ale boy spurred Rumpa through the forest, taking the rough ground that no wagon could traverse. Auralia had taught him this. “Pack light and roads become unnecessary.”

He had learned so much from her. On that night of cataclysm and fire, when Auralia was swept up in a storm of light and cloud and carried away from House Abascar by the Keeper, the ale boy’s vision had changed. No, he had changed. Glimpsing something outside the borders of what he’d thought possible, he now saw differently, thought more carefully, behaved more boldly.

He had seen the Northchildren. They were real, with their vague, blurred features, their curious and childlike manner. He had seen the Keeper, that creature of myth and forbidden stories, with legs great as tree trunks, a tail like a lightning storm, wings full as sails, and a long face with eyes as rich and deep as oceans. And he had seen Auralia crumpled at his feet and yet speaking to him from one of the Northchildren’s shrouds, somehow dead and yet living.

Now he too was a mystery. A fool. And yet, many inquired about the secrets of the extraordinary colors that he carried, longing to know their source. He could not explain more than to speak of Auralia and to let them gaze some more and touch the elaborate weave.

His flight from the furious merchant had led him into a valley of whitegrass. Thick woods waited at the bottom of the valley. Plunging into those shadows, he heard men shouting, dogs howling.

He jumped off the vawn. Rumpa could lead off the pursuers while he sought hiding. “Go,” he commanded Rumpa, who fussed and whimpered at the order. “Go and don’t come back until it’s safe.”

Rumpa vanished, and the ale boy pawed at the weeds that had overrun the exposed roots of a leaning tree. He found an empty gorrel hollow and stuffed in the bundle of Auralia’s relics. He had just pushed soil in front of the opening when the dogs surrounded him, spittle flying from their snarls.

Then came the yellow-bearded man who did not ask questions. He saw the boy, and he saw the scarf, the one piece of Auralia’s work he had dropped. He jumped from his vawn and reached for the scarf, grabbing one end just as the boy took the other. When it tore, the boy released it, crying out as if his own arm had been broken.

“Bring him in,” the soldier said. “I’ll question him in time. We need to find out what he’s seen.”

“Question him? He’s just a scrap of a boy,” another soldier replied. “What threat could he possibly pose?”

“He could be a spy. When I squeeze him, we’ll learn plenty.”

The ale boy woke suddenly, pressing himself into a corner of the prison pen. In the cell beside his, a slavering, doglike beastman with striped skin and boarlike tusks lay scratching at the dirt, almost entirely paralyzed.

The pimple-faced guard who paced outside the cages had all but forgotten the ale boy, so preoccupied was he with taunting the beastman.

“Just you wait till Officer Ryllion gets some sleep.” The guard slouched against the wall, snacking on rocknuts he drew from a bowl and spitting vile remarks about the various ways Ryllion might dispose of the monster.

When the door at the end of the corridor opened, the guard sprang up, kicking the bowl so that nuts tumbled in all directions. After groping for his spear, he stood at attention.

A figure in a long sailor’s coat, a woman with golden hair as short as a young boy’s, approached. The ale boy discerned immediately from her stride and stature, and from the guard’s rigid attention, that she was of some importance. Hoarsely the guard said, “Honorable Heiress, it is an unexpected pleasure to—”

“Hush.” The lady stood still, staring fixedly at the beastman, whose red eyes scanned the cell methodically. “Blessed towers of Inius Throan!” she gasped.

“The heiress wishes to address the Cent Regus creature,” said another woman. He recognized this one. She had brought him bread and fruit.

“Garbal, who is this?” The heiress gave the ale boy a quick glance, then returned her wary gaze to the beastman.

“Found him prowling outside the walls. He behaved suspiciously when we caught him.”

“He’s a harmless child.”

“He might have seen things, my lady.”

“Like what? One of our soldiers smoking madweed or watering a tree?”

“Ryllion has…concerns. We think he may be a thief. He was carrying things that—”

“I’ll have words with Ryllion. But first, I wish to speak with the other prisoner.” Turning to the guard, the heiress added, “Alone.”

“Honorable Heiress, Ryllion commanded me to hold this post and ensure that the creature does not harm anyone. I must obey you above anyone, of course. But Ryllion—”

“Very well, then, you can stay. But do not interfere.” The heiress shuddered as if shaking off a bad dream. Without turning her gaze from the creature, she lifted a plain cloth, unfolded it, and presented it to the beastman. The ale boy sat up, squinting. The heiress had brought the creature a fish. He saw her tuck something blue behind the fish’s gills. She stepped toward the bars, holding out the cloth with trembling hands.

“Beastman,” she said quietly. “No, I won’t call you that. I’ll call you a man of House Cent Regus. You will find this hard to believe, but I want to help you.”

The creature’s nose twitched. He grunted, licked his lips, but did not rise.

“Dumb as a tree trunk, my lady,” said the guard. “Shot with a poisoned arrow. He won’t move for days. Maybe never again.”

She hesitated, then edged toward the bars. The beastman began to growl like a guard dog, and his skin faded to match the brittle soil of the floor. She shoved the cloth through the bars in front of his snout. “Are you hungry?” She smoothed out the edges of the cloth. His lips drew back to show his teeth. The heiress stepped away, out of breath.

The guard gaped as if he had just seen the queen’s daughter propose marriage to a gorrel.

This, the ale boy marveled, is Cyndere of Bel Amica. She was even more courageous than he’d heard.

Cyndere knelt. “I came to help you. But I can only do that if you listen. Do you understand?” Her words sounded forced, rehearsed.

The ale boy watched the sisterly tremble and clutch at her robe.

The beastman inched forward, caught the edge of the cloth between his lips, and in a moment the fish was gone, bones and all, and the cloth lay shredded by sharp teeth.

No one moved. The beastman’s eyes blinked sleepily. The heiress did not move, staring as if her gaze alone could change the creature. And the beastman was, in fact, changing. A resentful growl festered in the back of his throat, as if he were beginning to suspect that he had been tricked. His breathing slowed to long, deep inhalations. His claws began to gouge deeper ruts in the dirt, and with some effort he lifted his chin from the floor.

“Quiet,” said the woman soothingly. “Quiet now. Listen to my voice. Can you understand me?”

The beastman whimpered.

“I am Cyndere. I want to help you. Deuneroi and I vowed to help you.”

The ale boy thought of the Cent Regus monster who had come to Auralia’s caves. He recognized Auralia’s courage in the Bel Amican heiress. But this beastman was different.

A sneer revealed the monster’s teeth. “Doon-roy.” The beastman’s long pink tongue emerged and lashed across his tusks as if he were remembering a favorite meal. “Hel hel hel. Doon-roy.”

Cyndere recoiled as if struck. The guard stepped forward, ready to impale the creature if the heiress gave the word. But Cyndere was moving back down the corridor, shaken and silent, taken into her servant’s embrace.

The beastman pushed himself tremblingly to his feet, as if prying himself from an invisible cocoon. Cackling, he lurched to the bars, rubbing his belly. “Doon-roy!” he howled. “Doon-roy!”

“The poison,” the guard gasped. “Something’s counteracting the poison!”

“This is not what you need, Cyndere,” said her helper. “What you need is a new start. New dreams.”

After the echoes had died and Garbal returned to spewing insults, the ale boy began to wonder if he would ever walk free again. He could not sleep.

The tedium was interrupted by Ryllion, who appeared when one guard relieved the last.

The soldier ignored the boy, stepping to the beastman’s bars with such confidence that the creature crawled to the back of the cage.

“Don’t fret now, little beastman.” Ryllion drew his sword slowly, and the blade hummed in the air. He rattled it between bars of the beastman’s cell. The ale boy covered his ears, but it only muffled the soldier’s voice. “You think you’ll be punished for frightening the heiress? You’re meant for something better. I’m not going to harm a single whisker. Not yet. I’m preparing something special. Soon you will give the heiress…you will give all of us a certain consolation. And then nothing more will be expected of you. Nothing at all.”

Hours later the ale boy’s hands still covered his ears, as much for warmth as to shut out the spiteful taunts of the new guard. Behind closed eyes, he tried to retrace his steps through the forest to the tangle of tree roots where he had concealed Auralia’s unfinished work. Memory blurred into dream. The forest was a labyrinth. The Keeper’s tracks were everywhere and nowhere, crisscrossing and making no sense. He sensed a turbulent darkness on the edge of his vision, like an advancing tide surging up from the ground. It smelled of beastmen. He turned to flee, but for all his effort, he was stuck, unable to take even a step. The tide advanced. And the only choice available set him to shaking like a baby bird abandoned in the nest.