"Nancy Springer - Isle 05 - The Golden Swan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

could not remember afterward. But Dair saw and remembered well enough. Light, it was all light, not
cloth; mauve and lavender light. Then a striking feral face appeared. Broad forehead, brows that darkly
met, nostrils that pulsed, wideset amethyst eyes that moved to meet hisтАФthatwere his. A human face, but
unmistakably his connate face, his own.

"A regal face," Trevyn said in a hushed voice. Even as he spoke the face shifted form, became a flower
such as no one had ever seen before, a blossom made of fire and dew. It blazed and flamed; then as they
blinked it dwindled and vanished into the orchid light. The web on the loom went gridelin grayтАФ

Now what? Dair: wondered, puzzled.Shadowy water тАФ
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It was a lake, the most still and waiting of lakes, its smooth surface glinting iron gray, willows on its verge
hanging moss gray hi breathless, sunless ah". On the dim water a swan floated with scarcely a ripple.

"Strange water," said Trevyn.

The swan was black, its image in the water, white. It had been hurt or crippled somehow, for one wing
hung limp. But in a moment the wing had healed and it was flying, and it had turned white, pure shining
white. It circled and flew nearer, nearтАФthe water drew nearer as well. But it was no longer the still lake
water. It was purple tinged and restless. The swan vanished or became the whitecaps of that sea.

Ocean, Dair murmured.

A vast expanse. He knew that cold, swelling, limitless expanse that surrounded IsleтАФand amidst all that
vastness a speck, a floating cockleshell, a mere bauble of a boat, a coracleтАФand in it a solitaryтАФ

Who is that?

"Watch," said Ylim.

Closer, always closer. They could see the face now. A youth with russet hair, freckles on the high
cheekbones, fine, rugged features and a keen, seeking look about Ms clear brown eyes. One hand was
on a steering oar. The other hung useless from a shriveled arm and shoulderтАФ Dair felt his heart turn
over. Without knowing he had moved he found himself standing with his front paws on the frame of the
loom, and in a blink the vision vanished. He faced featureless cloth.

"Who was it? Ylim asked.

IтАФdon't know. But already he felt the mystic bond.

"You will know him well someday," Ylim said.

"Perhaps you will voyage with him out on that sea," Trevyn mused. Dair turned to him in sharp distress.

But Father, I never want to leave you.