"David Wingrove - Chung Kuo 3 - The White Mountain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wingrove David)

Chapter 15: Between Light and Shadow 307
Chapter 16: Dragonflies 335
Chapter 17: In a Darkened Eye 374
Chapter iS: The Dead Brother 394
Chapter 19: White Mountain 410
Chapter 20: Flames in a Glass 432
Author's Note 453
A Glossary of Mandarin Terms 456
Acknowledgments 461
In Times to Come . . . 4^3
PART I SUMMER 2207
At the Bridge of ChтАЩin


The white glare recedes to the Western hills, High in the distance sapphire
blossoms rise. Where shall there be an end of old and new? A thousand years
have whirled away in the wind. The sands of the ocean change to stone, Fishes
puff bubbles at the bridge of Ch'in. The empty shine streams on into the distance,
The bronze pillars melt away with the years.

тАФLI ho, On and On Forever, ninth century a.d.




CHAPTER ONE

Scorched Earth

L I SHAI TUNG stood beside the pool. Across from him, at the entrance to the arboretum, a
single lamp had been lit, its light reflecting darkly in the smoked-glass panels of the walls, misting a pallid
green through leaves of fern and palm. But where the great T'ang stood it was dark.

These days he courted darkness like a friend. At night, when sleep evaded him, he came here, staring
down through layers of blackness at the dark submerged forms of his carp. Their slow and peaceful
movements lulled him, easing the pain in his eyes, the tenseness in his stomach. Often he would stand for
hours, unmoving, his black silks pulled close about his thin and ancient body. Then, for a time, the
tiredness would leave him, as if it had no place here in the cool, penumbral silence.

Then ghosts would come. Images imprinted on the blackness, filling the dark with the vivid shapes of
memory. The face of Han Ch'in, smiling up at him, a half-eaten apple in his hand from the orchard at
Tongjiang. Lin Yua, his first wife, bowing demurely before him on their wedding night, her small breasts
cupped in her hands, like an offering. Or his father, Li Ch'ing, laughing, a bird perched on the index finger
of each hand, two days before the accident that killed him. These and others crowded back, like guests
at a death feast. But of this he told no one, not even his physician. These, strangely, were his comfort.
Without them the darkness would have been oppressive: would have been blackness, pure and simple.

Sometimes he would call a name, softly, in a whisper; and that one would come to him, eyes alight
with laughter. So he remembered them now, in joy and at their best. Shades from a summer land.