"Springer, Nancy - Book Of The Isle 05 - Golden Swan v1 0.rtf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

"I have seen that face again," he choked, "and it is hideous, hideous!"
It was as Trevyn had said. He was far braver than we could know or understand, for what he faced was fearsome. After a while he quieted, leaning against me, accepting my concern,- my clumsy attentions and my love. Finally he straightened, the tears still streaking his face. He raised his head to meet my eyes. He reached up to touch my brow. He had never done that.
"Dair," he said, "thank you, ten thousand times thank you. I owe you more than I can say. I have never had such a friend."
I wanted to fall at his feet in my gratitude. But he needed me beside him just thenЧand as he spoke my mother came out to greet us both.
INTERLUDE I
from The Book of Suns
Now it is said that fire and water are elements that exclude one another,, that never meet. But I tell you, People of Peace, that in the One all things meet, and I will tell you a tale of a thing the One has done.
It is said also that the sun is a great golden man, or a stallion, or a chariot or a fiery wheel. All these things may be true. But I tell you the sun is a great golden swan. By day it flies, and by dawning and dusk it floats on the surrounding ocean, and by night it dives deep, for it must swim the dark flood that lies beneath. Arrowswift, arrow-straight it swims from the west unto the east where it rises to fly again. And the sunswan is made of fire, but the flood does not quench it.
And it is said yet once again that the moon is a swan as well, a silver swan that floats on a river of stars. And so indeed it is. But it is true as well that the moon is a comely woman, and a jewel, and a pearly ship, and a white deer, a hart. And the moonswan is made of white fire.
Now in those Beginning days moonswan and sunswan were one. For the One lived in perfection then, encompassing all things, male and female and all their passions, all loves and hates. White fire and bright, day and night were One. There was no rift then, no shattering of essence into multiplicity. But where there is life there must be movement, and the movement circled and quickened until it gathered itself into a tide and surge which broke the surface of that entity. And that which was moon burst free, sundered from the other part, and ran as a white hart across the heavens. And the sun pursued it as a lost love.
Up, ever upward to the navel of heaven they ran, golden stag and white hart. And down into the deep they dove, golden swan and argent, and swam full circle, and up streaming into the high heaven again they flew. And when moon found it could not outstrip the sun, the white hart turned and pierced him with its sharp horns, and the sunswan fell spiraling down and down until it fell to rest on a high and hidden place of earth. I am torn, swan cried, torn self from self. My own flesh and form has betrayed me.
The wound was not mortal, but blood ran out of it and stained some fiery feathers red. Sunswan moistened them further with tears, for he felt doom and all the strife and sorrow of mortality in his wound and in a new thing that was coming over earth, a strange dark presence called night. And moon had sworn that thenceforth she would ever be at opposite reach of earth from him, night-swan to his day, dusk to his dawn. So the sun wept. But as he did so he set about to make something, a marvel that would in end time bring her back to him.
With his great bill he plucked the feathers from his wounded breast, feathers of fire. And that fire was wet with blood and with dew of his tears and with salt water of the flood. Such petals as never were he fashioned there, petals made of flamefeather and water of the flood. With them he made a flower like no other flower that has ever been seen, his own child born of his flesh and of the conflicting elements, as alive as he was. He washed it in the pure waters of that place, waters that welled from the navel of earth itself, and it blazed ever brighter.
Now, he said, you will serve to purify with fire the one who will come .to find you. And you will confer on that mortal the power to bring all things back to One. And may that day come soon.
He taught the flower to hide in earth until the time had come. But that day did not come soon, and it has not come yet, nor will it come until the dawning of the days of the final age, when the tide has turned back to primal truth. And still the flower hides. It comes forth only in the dark night of that one day a year when its parent sun is in his fullest bloom and power.
Now you ask me, who is this one who will come? A hero of greatest stature, you are thinking, perhaps one of the Sun Kings who have been promised to you. For the final age is drawing near, and you can feel that. But I tell you, Fair Folk, my first children, this passing will not take place as you expect. He who plucks the fire flower shall not be the strongest one, but the one who needs it the most. And a scion of the Sun Kings shall aid him.
book two
MAEVE
Chapter One
I am Maeve, mortal woman, soul now, speaking to you from the stardark realm. I was Moon Mother when I lived; she lived in me, as she has in many others. She, an aspect of Alys All-Mother who is at one with the ineffable OneЕ Fertility was my function. Trevyn was Very King, even though he was hardly more than a boy when I knew him, so I went to him and conceived DairЧ I went to him the seven nights of the swelling moon. Then when he brought the magic back to Isle I was there, I was a wolf that worships the moon, and I bore him a lupine son.
I was rather expecting that Dair would come to me, but I was not at all expecting Frain. -
Old Dorcas, my servant, brought the news to me that strangers were standing in the meadow. She came running into the room where I was at work packing some things for my journeyЧmore about that later. She was very excited and rather afraid, for strangers came seldom. So I went on out and there was Dair, buck naked and beautiful. I suppose I ought to say that I was a matronly sort, my body thick, my clothing drab, my hair pulled back in a bun and streaked with gray; I am sure I surprised Trevyn very much by giving him his son. But I have always known beauty when I see it, and my son was supremely beautiful. I knew him not only by that but by his amethyst eyes. I hurried to him and embraced him.
Mother! he exclaimed, returning the embrace. It was only a growl, but I understood him well enough.
"What makes you think I am your mother?" I teased.
Your eyesЧthey are the color of violets in shadow.
"Yes." I hugged him and let him go. "Who is this other one?" I asked.
Frain. The tone said "Friend." The fellow stood by Dair's side, pale and plainly shaken. He was a winsome youth with auburn hair and an earnest, searching look; it was not until later that I noticed the crippled arm. I extended my hand to him, speaking to him in Traderstongue, for I could see he was a foreigner. There were no redheads in Tokar except slaves.
"You are very welcome here," I told him, pressing his damp and trembling palm. "Let us go in and have some tea."
Dorcas had the kettle on, for a wonder. It was mint tea, quite strong; it brought tears to the eyes. Dair and I talked all in a warm rush, remembering each other, remembering Trevyn; how was he, his wife, his child? And IsleЧ Frain sat and sipped his tea and listened to us. Gradually his tight shoulders relaxed and the color came back into his face.
"I wish I could talk to Dair like that," he said to me. - We had been speaking the Old Language, of course, and Frain was not one of the special few who remember it. I shook my head regretfully.
"The Elder Tongue was born in me and in Trevyn," I told him. "It is not a language that can be learned or taught. UnlessЕ" I let the thought drift away. It was not yet time to speak of quests and journeys. At that moment the plain, close kitchen, the low dusty rafters and wooden table that I had been so willing to leave seemed to me the dearest things in my life. Home. For thirty years this squat little house had been my home.
"He is so much wiser than I am," Frain said. "He senses danger and runs boldly in the dark, while I blunder into peril and shy from mere phantomsЕ What* was it that frightened me so? I had to be led in here like a child by the wild man." He gave Dair an affectionate glance.
"Shadows," I said. "Shades of the dead. Not a hero in ten thousand could have come in here. You are a rare one, Frain."
"But I had not thought I was afraid of the dead," he protested. "I have met them before. In Vale, souls fly up as birds. The Luoni harry them to deprive them of their afterlife. Then they must dive and swimЧ"
"So what is there to be frightened of?" I asked.
"A lot! People in my country are afraid of anything
that flies, of the night, the screams of the Luoni, and they are afraid of flowing water. They say the rivers have boneless hands that will pull a person down. But I never saw them, and I was never afraid of noises in the night or birds or water untilЧuntil that last time." He stopped, suddenly pallid.
"Go on," I said. Fear has to be met.
"I looked into Shamarra's lake and I saw that face," he whispered.
Then he saw it again today! Dair put in excitedly. I waited, wanting Frain to say that for himself.
"Well, the shades are like the water, in a way," I remarked when he said nothing more. "They are fluid, formless, colorless. They themselves - are practically nothing. Anything they cause you to see is a reflection."
Reflection of what? Frain should have asked. Perhaps he did ask himself and could not sit still for the answer. He got up, looking bleak, and I knew better than to pursue.
"Let me find you something to eat," I said.
"There's a little food in my pack yet," Frain muttered, "wherever I left itЧoh, Eala, it's down beyond the trees."
"I'll get it," Dair offered, and he ambled out. Old Dorcas hid her face in modesty at the sight of him and fled to a secluded portion of the house.
We ate lunch when he returned. It was mostly green beans from the garden; Dair chewed them with much sour grimacing. Already I knew that he would be out on the hunt for meat after dark. I smiled and turned my attention to Frain.
"Tell me why you are here."
We talked through the afternoon. It took that long to get much sense out of him. I think that he himself did not really know what he wanted of me, so he had to tell me his whole story before I could understand the joke fate or his own foolhardiness had played on him. He had thought Isle to be Ogygia-Чwell, he might have been not too far wrong. Isle was a magical place. He had spoken with Alys there. He had to find Shamarra, he told me, and the goddess had sent him to me for help.
I knew nothing of Shamarra, night birds or Vale either. "What exactly did she say?" I asked. I knew the riddling ways of the goddess.
"To go east."