"Janny Wurts - Wayfinder(2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wurts Janny)

scalding. "You heard my call," he said. "The mare came, and you answered also."
Sabin found speech at last. "You knew I would."
He shook his head, his unbleached honey-colored hair veiling his
weather-beaten face. "I wasn't sure. I hoped you might. Gifts such as yours are
needed sorely."
The white mare stamped, impatient. She blew a salty, gusty snort. New tears
welled in tracks down Sabin's cheeks, and she reached out trembling fingers and
touched the shimmering white shoulder. It was icy as sea-water; magical and
terrifying and beautiful enough to bring madness. The words she struggled to shape
came out choked. "If the horse cannot return, then neither will I."
"You are both my responsibility," the Wayfinder admitted. "And will be, to
the end of my days." He extended his hand, no longer so thin, but disfigured still
with old scars. "You must know the Karbasch would have burned more than boats,
and slaughtered and raped did they land."
Sabin felt as if she had swallowed a stone. "You spared the whole village, and
they hate you."
He sighed, and the mare shifted under him, anxious to be away. "Oh my dear,
it could not be helped. What is a boat? Or a man? New trees will grow and be
fashioned into planks, and women will birth babies that age and grow senile and die.
But just as this mare can't return to the waves, so an earth spirit that is maimed can
never heal. The Karbasch shed more than mortal blood. I could not allow myself to
be captured, however bitter the price."
"You could have died," Sabin said, her gaze transfixed by the horse.
And he saw it was not his exile, but the fate of the mare that she mourned. The
two of them, man and girl, were alike to the very core.
A shout knifed the quiet, and torches shimmered through the trees. The mare
stamped again, and was restrained by a touch as the Wayfinder said in measured
calm, "I can still die. But you must know, the mare should be cared for. She is not
of mortal flesh. If I give myself up, hear warning. Your talents will blossom with
time. A horse such as this will draw notice, and the Karbasch will send another fleet.
Their craving for conquest is insatiable as the ocean is vast, and in'am shealdi to
guide them, most rare."
She made no move, and her rejection seemed to shatter his detachment. He
lifted his head as the noise of the mob came closer. The edgy, unaccountable
wariness that every offered kindness had not softened gentled very suddenly into
pity. "In'am shealdi," he murmured in the grainy, musical voice that had
commanded the horse from the sea. "This mare left the water at my call, you are
right, but her sacrifice was never made for me."
Sabin looked up, stricken. "For my life?" she gasped, "or my gift?"
"Both." His eyes were not cold. Inside the serenity lent by power lay a human
being who could bleed. "If you treasure the beauty of the horses, heed this. We are
the only ones who know their kind. Others see no more than surf and foam. It is our
protection, Sabin, that keep this spirit-mare alive, our call that lends her substance."
The torches reached the crossroad, and light flared and arrowed between the
trees.
"There he is!" someone shouted, and the note of the mob quickened like the
baying of hounds that sight game.
To her dream-filled ears, the pursuers uttered no words, but made only a
cacophony of vicious noise. The roll of the sea held more meaning, and from this
time forward, always would.