"Sheri S Tepper - The End of the Game_txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

Well, listened. It was on a teetery branch of a tall tree outside the tower window, so I guess you couldnТt say УoverheardФ. I just happened to be there. Looking for birdsТ eggs.

Murzy was saying, УMy oldest sister, maТam. Not much longer in this life, I shouldnТt think, and it would be nice to spend Festival together. So, a couple of the dams and I decidedЧwith your permission, of course, maТamЧweТd go on up to Schooltown and spend a few days with her. IТd be happy to take young Jinian with us, too. Get her off your hands. The girlТs got a good heart, but heaven save us, sheТs always into mischief ...Ф

Mischief! I was into no such thing, and started to say so, but the branch cracked under me and I decided to be still.

Mother fingered the crystal she had on a chain around her neck. Mendost had given it to her, and she always wore it. УChildren are a trial,Ф she said. That was nothing new. She often said it, especially to me.

УThey are that, maТam.Ф That was new. Murzy always said to me that children are one of lifeТs great joys, so I knew she was up to something. УI think any conscientious mother needs a rest from time to time.Ф

УYouТre right.Ф Mother sighed. You would have thought from that sigh she didnТt have two hundred pawns around to do whatever they were told, plus all the kinfolk, plus Garz and Bram. From that sigh, youТd have thought the whole weight of the Demesne was on her head. УThey wanted me to make a Dervish of her, you know, Dam Murzy. I wouldnТt do it to a child of mine, but IТve wondered since if it wouldnТt have been best for her. With her nature and all.Ф

УA Dervish? My, my. What a thing that would have been to be sure.Ф MurzyТs voice was all choked. She shook her head, and I tried to think what Mother could possibly have meant by that. УWell, taking the child away may relieve your burdens just a little.Ф

And, of course, Mother said yes. I so admired the way old Murzy did it, I didnТt even fuss at her about saying I got up to mischief. I hardly ever did. Mischief, 1 mean. I didnТt remember to ask about the Dervish business, either.

УSo why are we really going?Ф I asked her. УNot just to visit your old sister, IТll warrant.Фа.

УIТm very fond of Kate,Ф she said, somewhat stiffly. УAnd we will visit her, you may be sure.Ф

УBut,Ф I begged her. УBut?Ф

УBut weТre going, at least partly, to continue tha education. And to amuse ourselves. Now, donТt ask any more questions. Trust old Murzemire. She hasnТt done you wrong yet, has she?Ф

She hadnТt. Not once. Besides, I wasnТt sure I wanted to know why we were going anywhere. Some of the things I already knew were very heavy in my mind from time to time. Having something else in there even heavier didnТt attract me. Learning more was merely ordinary to me, but travelingЧthat was a wonderful treat.

At least so I thought until we had done some of it. Then it turned out that traveling was doing everything one had to do at home with none of the conveniences for doing it. I was kept very busy gathering wood for the cookfire, and checking the horsesТ hooves for stones, and rubbing them down and watering them, and arranging the wagon, and washing our clothes in the streams. It is a long way from our Demesne to Schooltown, a long slow way when one travels so as to avoid getting involved in Game on the way. There was nothing interesting on the way but scenery, and by the time we arrived I was heartily surfeited with scenery and very glad to see walls once more. We stayed at an inn, thank the Hundred Devils, one owned by sister Kate. She looked nowhere near to dying to me, and she had her own servants to fetch wood and water. As a child of Gamecaste, I thought I would not have to do anything at all. In which I was mistaken. The day after we arrived, all seven of us were back in the wagon going off through Schooltown and into the countryside to an old, tumbly building with moss all over its rocks and its walls gaping up at the sky like teeth. There was a broken tower and steps that wound up and around onto old roofs and down and around into old dungeons. I looked about me doubtfully while the others unloaded their picnic lunch and their work-baskets and then traipsed up the stairs to a comfortable room in the tower. It had a fire, cushions to sit on, translucent shutters over the windows, and the six of them sat down there like brood hens, Murzy waving me off. УExplore, Jinian. The whole place. Come back when tha feels hungry.Ф

So I did. Up to the roofs and down to the cellars, then below the cellars to the dungeons, old and slimy and full of things that squeaked. It wasnТt fearsome, that place, just old. So I wandered it and wandered it, and got tired and went back for a bite of lunch, then wandered it again. Come dark we got in the wagon and went back to the inn. Next day, back to the place again. Murzy and the dams had been teaching me to use my senses, and I used them as best I knew how, but about the third day, I began to be bored with it. УAll right,Ф I said to them all, hands on my hips. УWhatТs it all about?Ф

Murzy put down her needle and pointed to the window in the tower. УThereТs bridge magic, Jinian. And window magic.Ф

I couldnТt think what she was talking about. I stood there, staring at the window. Then I walked out into the corridor and stared at another window. Then back into the tower room, where the six of them chatted and clucked like hens. And then, quite suddenly, I began to get a glimmer.

A stone wall: which implied a builder, which implied a closed space, which implied protection from an outer world, or retreat from that world, or hiding from that world. And a window cut through: wide, with a welcoming sill, on which one might curl up on pillows to dream away a morning or long evening, looking out at the light making patterns beneath the trees. A window was a kind of joining, then. A kind of linkage between worlds. And a wind would come in, and light could come in, with tough, translucent shutters standing wide but ready to shut against bitter blast or hard rain. Gray of stone, blue of sky, with the bright green of new leaf blowing against it. Hardness of stone, softness of air. Shadows moving across the window. A memory of firelight, with soft breezes moving from the window to the fire. And in this room, welcome. Murzy nodded to me, picking up her needle again.

Breathless with what I thought I knew, I left the room and ran away down the stone corridor, finding the hidden entrance to the stair that twisted down inside the tower. At the third curve was a window, a narrow slit cut through the wall to peer down at the castle gate from an unsuspected angle, high and secret, hidden in the shadow of the tower. Suspicion. Fear. Stone within and without, the broken gravel of the hard road making on obdurate angle at the edge of the wall, edged with more stone, the spears of the raised portcullis making fangs at the top of the gate. Not joining, but separation.

I nodded to myself, fleeing downward once more, through the hidden door at the bottom and then down ancient ways to the empty dungeons at the bottom of the keep. There was one where a slit window at the ceiling fed a narrow beam of pale light reflected from a slimy pond outside. The wall sweated moisture, a dank smell of deep earth and old mold lay in the place, and a green ooze covered the wall. Here the light lay upon the ceiling, reflected upward, wavering, a ghost light, gray and uncertain, lighting only the stone in a ceaseless, agitated motion, without peace.

I looked at that watery light for a long time before climbing back up to the room where they waited. Murzy nodded to me once more, not failing to notice the stains of slime on my hands, falling into the common folk nursery talk they often used when it suited them.

УThaТs been adown the deeps? Nasty down there.Ф

УIТve been discovering window magics, Murzy. It came to me all at once.Ф

УWell, if it comes at all, it comes all at once.Ф

I sat down at MurzyТs feet, suddenly adrift from the possession of knowing, the certainty of action. I knew, yes, but what was it I knew? УDifferent,Ф I said to her, feeling my way. УDifferent windows. Magic, because they have an out and an in, because they are linkages of different kinds. Because they are built. Because they are dreamed through and looked through. ButЧsomething more, I guess ...Ф