"Mary Stewart - The Arthurian Saga 01 - The Crystal Cave" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart Mary)

This is true of all old men, that the recent past is misted, while distant scenes of memory are clear and
brightly coloured. Even the scenes of my far childhood come back to me now sharp and high-coloured
and edged with brightness, like the pattern of a fruit tree against a white wall, or banners in sunlight
against a sky of storm.

The colours are brighter than they were, of that I am sure. The memories that come back to me here in
the dark are seen with the new young eyes of childhood; they are so far gone from me, with their pain no
longer present, that they unroll like pictures of something that happened, not to me, not to the bubble of
bone that this memory used to inhabit, but to another Merlin as young and light and free of the air and
spring winds as the bird she named me for.

With the later memories it is different; they come back, some of them, hot and shadowed, things seen in
the fire. For this is where I gather them. This is one of the few trivial tricks тАФ I cannot call it power тАФ
left to me now that I am old and stripped at last down to man. I can see still...not clearly or with the call
of trumpets as I once did, but in the child's way of dreams and pictures in the fire. I can still make the
flames burn up or die; it is one of the simplest of magics, the most easily learned, the last forgotten. What
I cannot recall in dream I see in the flames, the red heart of the fire or the countless mirrors of the crystal
cave.

The first memory of all is dark and fireshot. It is not my own memory, but later you will understand how
I know these things. You would call it not memory so much as a dream of the past, something in the
blood, something recalled from him, it may be, while he still bore me in his body. I believe that such things
can be. So it seems to me right that I should start with him who was before me, and who will be again
when I am gone.

This is what happened that night. I saw it, and it is a true tale.


It was dark, and the place was cold, but he had lit a small fire of wood, which smoked sullenly but gave
a little warmth. It had been raining all day, and from the branches near the mouth of the cave water still
dripped, and a steady trickle overflowed the lip of the well, soaking the ground below. Several times,
restless, he had left the cave, and now he walked out below the cliff to the grove where his horse stood
tethered.

With the coming of dusk the rain had stopped, but a mist had risen, creeping knee-high through the trees
so that they stood like ghosts, and the grazing horse floated like a swan. It was a grey, and more than
ever ghostly because it grazed so quietly; he had torn up a scarf and wound fragments of cloth round the
bit so that no jingle should betray him. The bit was gilded, and the torn strips were of silk, for he was a
king's son. If they had caught him, they would have killed him. He was just eighteen.

He heard the hoofbeats coming softly up the valley. His head moved, and his breathing quickened. His
sword flicked with light as he lifted it. The grey horse paused in its grazing and lifted its head clear of the
mist. Its nostrils flickered, but no sound came. The man smiled. The hoofbeats came closer, and then,
shoulder-deep in mist, a brown pony trotted out of the dusk. Its rider, small and slight, was wrapped in a
dark cloak, muffled from the night air. The pony pulled to a halt, threw up its head, and gave a long,
pealing whinny. The rider, with an exclamation of dismay, slipped from its back and grabbed for the
bridle to muffle the sound against her cloak. She was a girl, very young, who looked round her anxiously
until she saw the young man, sword in hand, at the edge of the trees.

"You sound like a troop of cavalry," he said.