"Laura Resnick Yasmine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Laura)

know in my place. The lantern found its home at last in the temple of holy men who
lived on the roof of the world. I could not find one who wanted the wishes I had
been unable to grant my former master, but, unable to go, I stayed among them. The
holy men invited me to share their life, one which was austere for men but
comfortable for me, who had little need of the very things I could grant to others.
War came, and the holy men were slaughtered or driven from their place.
Though wounded, I could not be killed, and so I was taken into slavery by the
conquerors, travelling further east with the lantern, which had been seized from the
temple before its destruction. The commander of the invaders was a warrior of huge
appetites and voracious desires. Three wishes were not enough for him, and, after I
had dissolved into the lantern, he tried to lure me out again. There was, of course,
one way to call me forth, but his heart was too cruel and hungry to love.
Finally, when he knew he could never again have me for himself, he determined
that no one else should, either, and he tried to destroy the lantern. But, fabricated by
the gods as a prison for one of their own kind, it is not a thing that can be easily
detroyed. Neither the hottest kiln nor the harshest blows could demolish it, and I
endured.
But all things physical are subject to damage, as I had learned in my lifetimes,
and the lantern lost some of its purity of form and glowing beauty. It became a
common thing, and, as the centuries passed, it was possessed by common people.
Some were kind, others cruel, but none chose to love me.
And then the lantern was pulled out of the sea, whence it had fallen during some
forgotten voyage of another century, by a young man whose heart was bursting with
nameless, boundless desires that singed my senses even as I took shape before him.
His reaction to me was one I had not encountered before, for he cared nothing for
the wishes I offered him, despite the longings that colored his soul; instead, he took
my hand and asked me my name.
"You shall name me," I said, for such was his right.
"Don't you have a name?"
 "Only the one most destined to please you."
"What would please you?" he asked gently.
For the first time in all my lives, I felt blood heat my face. "Master, it is for you
to name me." And then, for the first time ever, I made a request. "Only please, don't
use the names any of the others have given me."
He called me Yasmine, and I found that the name pleased me. He offered me
comfort, which no one ever had, and the wind sang that perhaps I would be freed at
last.
He spoke freely of himself and asked only that I do the same. It was difficult at
first, for my lives had only taught me to listen, but I soon learned to answer his voice
and use my own without hesitation. He taught me other things as well, lessons as
immortal as I, pleasures as old as time, and the flavor of his skin will linger with me
throughout all eternity.
At his request, I spun the tale of my beginning, the swirl of planets that had
accompanied my birth and the shower of stars that had baptized my immortality. It
was not easy to describe with the primitive tools of language, and I knew he thought
I was merely weaving dreams to please him.
"How did you come to be in the lantern?" he asked once.
I was afraid to tell that tale, since I feared the rulers, separated from me as they
were, could still reach out and destroy me if they chose. I had desired such a thing
more than once, but now I wished only to cling to the sweetness of my days. But he