"Winter-BloodHarp" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winter Laurel)

LAUREL WINTER

BLOOD HARP

*
About the story. she writes, "I attended a Rochester Symphony concert with a
friend and the wordless sensory stimulation inspired a flood of word ideas,
including one for a 'blood harp.'" She turned that idea into the haunting story
which follows.

KEMMELIN CROUCHED NEXT to a mirror-smooth bench on the upper tier and rubbed
viciously with her polishing cloth. Maria was practicing again --if you could
call it that, her long fingers so far from the blood harp's strings that
Kemmelin could easily have fit her own fingers in the space between them. When
she had practiced in her home village -- on a lesser blood harp, not one of the
great harps like that rising from the stage below -- her fingers had almost
grazed the sharp and hungry strings.

Kemmelin played a simple tune in the air, her eyes mere slits. How would such a
song sound on the great blood harp? She imagined the strings slicing her
fingertips, the harmonics as the blood dripped down to feed the heart of the
harp, the --

The old woman's hard leather shoe nudged her leg. "Clean the benches. And the
relief rooms." Then she limped down the wide steps to the stage.

Kemmelin looked at the polishing cloth, abandoned on the smooth wood of the
bench. The old woman was instructing Maria on her practicing techniques; the
sound of their words reflected upwards in the great bowl of the room. Kemmelin
could hear them clearly from where she knelt, as clearly, she knew, as from any
other position in the blood hall.

Marja was showing the old woman her scar, which hadn't healed well yet. The old
woman offered no sympathies. "Try the baths-- after you finish practicing. And
you must be nearer." She grabbed one of Maria's hands and moved it close to the
strings. "Like so. You cannot fear the harp or the music will be flawed. Yet you
must respect it." This last she said more firmly.

"I do respect it." Kemmelin's cry was swallowed by the design of the room. All
the same, she had the strange feeling that the old woman knew what she had said
-- and didn't believe her.

She breathed in the musty-sweet smell of the hall, more scented by fungus than
blood, and clenched her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the old woman was
just approaching the entrance to the bath caves, below the stage. Maria had
begun practicing again, tears glittering on the dramatic planes of her face, her
fingers held at a more respectable distance from the strings. "But not as close
as I would hold them," Kemmelin whispered.