"Jo Walton - On the Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

On the Wall
By Jo Walton
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Trees. Tall trees and short trees, trees in autumn colours and trees winter-stark,
branches bared against the sky. Trees with needles, trees with leaves golden, brown,
and every possible shade of green. Trees in sunlight. Trees weighed down with
snow. Trees that covered this land from the mountains to the sea with only a few
clearings cut in them where men huddle. At first I could see nothing but trees.
Nothing else stayed still for long enough.
I suppose there were years before I learned to understand, years in which I
passively reflected what was set before me, but the first thing I remember is the
trees. It was the trees that first made me think, long ago, when I was without words.
What I thought was this, though more formless: trees change, but are the same. And
I thought: there are trees before me, but I have seen other trees. And on that thought
the other trees rippled on my surface, and the old man cried out in joy. I was not
aware of that, of course. He told me later. At that point he was barely a shadow to
me. He had never stood still for long enough for me to see him, as I could see a tree.
I do not know how long it was before I learned to reflect people. People move so
fast, and must always be doing.
The old man and his wife were great sorcerers both, and they had fled from
some castle in some clearing, the better to have freedom to practice their arts. This
was all they ever told me, though sometimes they set me to see that castle, a grey
stone keep rising from trees, with a few tilled fields around it before the trees began
again. The man had made me, he said, and they had both set spells upon me, and so
I was as I was. They taught me from the time I was made, they said. They talked to
me constantly, and at last with much repetition I learned not merely to reflect them
but to see them and to understand their words and commands. They told me to
show them other parts of the woods, or places in clearings, and I would do so,
although at first anything I had not seen before would just pass over my face like a
ripple in a pond. What I liked best was hour upon hour of contemplation, truly
taking in and understanding something. When they left me alone I would always turn
my thoughts to trees.
Their purpose in making me was to have a great scrying glass capable of
seeing the future. In this sense I am a failureтАФI can see only what is, not what has
been or will be. They still had hope I would learn, and tried to make me show them
Spring in Autumn and Winter in Summer. I could not, I never could, nor could I see
beyond the bounds of this kingdom. I have seen the sea lapping on the shore, the
little strip of beach before the edge of the forest, and I have seen the snowy peaks of
the mountains high up out of reach, but I have never seen further. These are my
limits. Nevertheless I was a great and powerful workтАФthey told me soтАФand there
was much they found they could do with me. I did not mind. In time I came to enjoy
seeing new things, and watching people.
 Some time laterтАФI cannot say how long, for I had then no understanding of
timeтАФthe old woman bore a child. She was born at the time of year when the
bluebells were all nodding in the green woods, and this was the scene I showed in
the cottage the day she was born. It was my choice of scene; that day they were too
busy to command me.
Shortly afterwards they began to teach me to reflect places I had never seen.
This took much time, and I fear the child was neglected. I struggled to obey their
commands and to show what they commanded to the best of my understanding.