"Karl Edward Wagner - Sing a Last Song of Valdese" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wagner Karl Edward)

"Sirs," she said, "don't think me cruel,
For I love another youth--
He must be gone for seven long years,
To study in a hidden school."

And when she told them the suitors laughed,
"Oh, your beauty is not for him--
Choose instead from one of our band,
And not some wizard's fool."

Then came her lover in a cloak of grey,
Returning from the hidden school--
Said, "I've been gone these seven long years,
Now I've come for the love of Valdese."
 "Oh no," swore the suitors in jealousy,
"You'll not steal our prize"--
And with cruel knives they took his life,
And the heart of Valdese after.

Now Valdese lies in the cold, cold ground,
And her spirit haunts these hills--
But her lover was sworn in the Grey Lord's name,
To serve seven times seven years.

"That's terrifying!" breathed Dordron, when the dwarf stopped singing. "So
uncanny an ending, that last verse!"
"Perhaps the last verse hasn't been written," the innkeeper suggested.
"Bodger, see how things are upstairs. It's grown strangely quiet up there."
"Well, at least we servants of Thoem have nothing to fear from lamiae!"
muttered the abbot stoutly. "Do we not, Revered Callistratis?"
"To be certain, eminence," the priest assured him. "Thoem protects his
servants from all creatures of evil."
Passlo suddenly drew a crystal-hilted dagger from the folds of his cassock.
"And for added protection in these shadow-haunted hills I carry with me this
sacred blade. It was shaped from star-metal by priests long dead, and the
runes on its blade give it power over evil's foul servants." He did not add
that he had stolen the blade from the abbey vaults.
"Seven years in a hidden school," mused the priest. "That can only mean one
thing."
Claesna nodded. "He was apprenticed to the cult of the Seven Nameless--and
sworn to the Grey Lord."
"Thoem grant that we someday see the extinction of that black cult of devil
worshippers!" growled Passlo.
"The cult is far older than your own religion," Claesna informed him. "And it
isn't devil worship, strictly speaking."
"Well, they're devils they worship!" Jarcos said shrilly.
"No. The Seven Nameless are elder gods. Or 'protogods,' more accurately, since
they exist beyond the ordered universe of good and evil forces. Their realm is
one of timeless chaos, a limbo of unformed creation and ultimate
dissolution--opposite forces that somehow exist simultaneously."