"Michelle West - The Memory of Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

two men whose likenesses were said to be perfect: the first Kings of Essalieyan. They w
not overly tall, and the space between them just large enough to fit a small girl with eas
large man would not have been able to follow that passage, and if he had never felt cause t
thankful for his lack of stature before, he was grateful now.
The passageway was narrow and poorly lit; it was cold with lack of light, and al
silent; his breath was captured by folds of cloth, muted.
He could not have said why he chose to follow this path. But having begun, he heard
and hearing her, saw her clearly, small, fine-boned, clear-eyed. He thought of what she m
be, robbed of color and lent the clarity of glass or crystal, and this helped; he could imagin
fires, the glass, the workroom, the movement of hands and lip, the changing contours
medium that was fluid, as close to the ocean in texture as anything solid could be.
 He had never had to work so hard just to walk in Fabril's reach.
Fabril's reach will teach you everything you need to know.
For the first time in years, he turned those words over in his mind's eye, blending them
Cessaly until they were a part of her, a part of his making. What, Master Nefem, do I nee
know? And if this is a part of it, why do I need to know it?
The hall ended; it opened into a room that had windows for a ceiling, a dome of fract
light. Crystal cut its fall into brilliant hues that traced the sun's progress.
She huddled in their center, her hands scratching the surface of the floor. She did not
him; could not see him. What she saw, he could not say, but he knew that she would see it
she found some release from it, until it was exorcised.
He could see what she could not: blood, dried and crusted upon the palms of her fla
hands.
He did not touch her. Instead, he knelt by her side and placed those tools he had found
the hands that were so ineffectual.
For the first time since he had entered the room, her focus changed. He placed the w
before her, but above the flat, smooth surface of stone.
He would take her from this room, in time. But that time was not yet come.
"Cessaly," he said, although he was certain she wouldn't hear him, "make what you mu
will return."

She loved the sound of Master Gilafas' voice.
No one had ever had a voice like his, and she marveled at it, for there was a tex
beneath the surface of his words and his emotions that moved her to listen. She had thoug
miss home; to miss her da and her mother; to long for Bryan and Dell, the two people who
brought her close to flight in the days of her childhood.
She forgot that longing quickly. The soles of her feet forgot the earth and the tall g
forgot the slender silver stream; forgot the soft mosses, the heavy leaves of undergrowth.
stone spoke to her in a voice that was so close to her own she felt it as a part of her. To
that would kill her.
And the only person with whom she could share this strange homecoming was M
Gilafas. His friends, Sanfred and Jordan, were as deaf as the man who had helped to birth
Master Gilafas understood her. He came to her with bits of wood, smooth stone, raw g
he gave her room in his workshop, and brought to her the glass that he loved. She did not
it, but she listened to its voice as it spoke to him, and sometimes, when the world was q
and her hands could be still, she would sing a harmony to its quiet voice.
But at other times, the stones would lead her to rooms that Master Gilafas could not fin
his own. She was afraid of the stone, then; afraid of being alone. She hated the darkness
lingered at its edges; it hurt her, and it promised to hurt her more.
She knew it. Because she heard what the stones said to him when he walked by her