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

"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.
Trevyn smiled, a warm, companionable smile. "It is hi the nature of human young to leave their parents," he said.
But I am a wolf. And it is in the nature of wolves to be loyal.
"You are more than wolf or human either," said Ylim. "Whose was the face, the first one?"
Mine. He did not hesitate to claim it. She nodded.
"And it is the face of an immortal. You are the son of Maeve the Moon Mother and Trevyn Elfborn, he who brought the magic back from Elwestrand to Isle. That was a turning of the great tide, a greater marvel than you can well imagine, and you were born of that magic." She eyed him sternly. "Dair, the web does not show its wonders for just anyone, you know. Fate may well take you away from your father and Isle."
Dair only whimpered.
"He is very young," Trevyn excused him. "That one on the boatЧdo you think he is part of Dair's destiny?"
"He and the swan, somehow. Ay."
"Who is he? Where does he come from?"
"How can I know?" Ylim grumbled. "I don't direct my weaving, Alberic, any more than you direct your dreams," For Trevyn's dreams were the font of the magic of Isle.
"And the flower, the lakeЧ"
"I don't know."
"And how Dair's human form is to come to himЧ"
Ylim merely smiled.
"Answer me just this one question, Ylim," Trevyn requested. "The large question. What part have you seen in tile pattern for Dair?"
She hesitated. "Dair," she said to the young wolf at last, "this is not binding. The pattern is ever changing. You may yet change it yourself."
I understand, Dair said.
"The pattern then is this: that you shall continue what your father has begun. That you shall carry magic onward to the mainland."
Fern flower, fire flower,
Burn, burn when the great tide turns.
Fern flower, show your power.
The Swan Lord will be there to see,
To grasp the stem that burns
And speak with thee,
learn melody,
and sing with wind and tree.
Fern flower, fire flower,
Bloom, bloom when the true time conies.
Fern flower, share your power.
The wandering wolf will bear your seed
And take you as his doom,
For all men free
your harmony. The tide has turned indeed.
DAIR
Chapter One
I am Dair. I am spirit, speaking to you mind to mind, for I know no other way to speak the languages of men. As a man I was a mute because I was born a wolf and stayed so until I was grownЧuntil the day I found Frain.
I had dreamed of him ever since I had seen him on Ylim's loom. It is hard to explain how much he meant to me, this bond brother I had never met. There was something in me that could not forget him. Perhaps it was the wolfwit, which forms attachments for life. Or perhaps it was my father's ardent Laueroc blood. His forebears, the Sun Kings, had been blood brothers and legendary friends, and then there had been his own bond with the god in the groveЧor perhaps it was something of the elf in him that would not let me lose sight of the Swan Lord who was coming. Whatever moved me, hardly a day went by that I did not think of the russet-haired youth as I had seen him, afloat on the lonely sea, his destiny somehow mixed in with mine. I wondered and longed for him all that year. I grew restless and took to roaming the downs even as far as the Westwood.
"Wanderlust," Trevyn grumbled. "Dair, you young fur-brained fool, would you please be careful? I worry about you when you are out alone." There was still much hard feeling against wolves hi Isle. It had been only a few years since the war when evil sorcery had turned them to a horror, and even Trevyn's good magic could not erase that memory.
No one can come near me, I bragged. I go like a shadow on the wind. I was well grown, strong and swift as mountain water.
"Indeed." Trevyn sat back studying me, and for some reason he sighed. He had a human child now, an infant, his legal heir, but always he greeted me with warmth and joy. Truly, I had not meant to go so far from him. But fate had its finger on me. My second snowy winter came and my unrest deepened as the snow.
Sometime after the solstice of that winter I left. The dream of the bond brother was on me, I felt the focus of his coming in the east, and I ran that way to meet him.
I journeyed far faster than any horse. I needed only a coney caught in the snow or a mouse or two and then I was off, padding, night and day, slipping like a slate blue shadow across Isle. For some weeks I went straight as an arrow, straight as arrowflight in silence, until I came to the eastern shore. There on the shingle beach I sat, trying to whiff the smell of destiny in the wind that came across the salt water. Finally I lay down, curling my warm tail over my nose. I lay there for three days.
I was stubbornly waiting. I would not move to hunt for food even though deer ran by within a hundred feet. Snow fell and covered me. Then the clouds drew away and a cold, cold night came. Every star showed, and all the stardark between, and all the warmth of earth seemed to have vanished into that void. There was a looming feeling in the night or hi me. I got up and stretched myself for a moment and looked out over the dim ocean, feeling myself tiny in the sight of those twin eyes, sea and sky. There was a steady lapping sound out on the far water that I could not identify. Even my nose told me nothing. All night I sat and watched the dark water and saw nothing. I remembered such dark water from an old woman's loom.
In the morning some instinct sent me northward a little way, and there he lay, naked, the salt spray turning to white rime ice on him.
Frain. The Swan Lord. I did not yet know him by those names, but I knew how important he was to me, and for a horrible moment I thought he was dead. He was lying on the hard, seawashed sand below the high tide ledge, his red hair snarled like wrack, his face far too paleЧas pale as sand and snow. But he still breathed, I saw. I lay down right on top of him, trying to warm him with my thick fur, and at that touch a pang of yearning made me howl aloud and the change came on me all in a moment.
It was not of my doing or deciding. These things are often awkwardЧI might have been of more use to him as a wolf. But it came on me willy-nilly, amid a welter of emotions, compassionЧit is the most human of emotionsЧand longingЧI wanted his smile, I had come all this way to meet him, to be his friend, his human friend, it seemedЕ Cold is what I remember first. The day was as bitterly cold as the night had been. Cold air and cold snow and sandЧmy fur was gone. I was practically hairless. How humans were to be pitied, to be always so naked beneath their clothes, so cold! I pitied myself heartily. My limbs shot out, long, and my heart pounded within great broad ribs. My muzzle disappeared. My vision blurred for a moment, then righted itself, and hands waved foolishly in front of my face. I was terrified, startled beyond telling. I sprang up to run off. But my limbs would no longer serve me wolf fashion, and I fell over on my side, thrashing. One foot struck Frain, and he groaned.
I had hurt him. I wanted to howl again.