"Zelazny, Roger - Changeling Saga - 02 - Madwand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

A look of apprehension widened the other's eyes, jerked at his mouth.
"My apologies," he said. "One never knows about travelers. I was merely acting to safeguard my master. I did not realize you were a brother in the Art."
"And now that you do...?"
"You are headed for the meeting at Belken?"
"Yes."
"I will speak with my master, who no doubt will invite you to accompany us."
"Go ahead."
"Who shall I tell him sends greetings?"
"Pol Detson--and this is Mouseglove."
"Very well."
He turned and moved to catch up with the bearers. Pol and Mouseglove followed.
Looking over the apprentice's shoulder, Pol glimpsed the old sorcerer himself before the man addressed him. Swathed in blue garments, a gray shawl over his shoulders, a brown rug upon his lap, it was difficult to estimate his size, though he gave the impression of smallness and fragility. His nose was sharp, his eyes pale and close-set; his cheeks and forehead were deeply creased, the skin mottled; his hair was thick, long, very black and looked like a wig--for his beard was sparse and gray. His hands were out of sight beneath the rug,
"Come nearer," he hissed, turning his head toward Pol and squinting.
After he did so, Pol held his breath, becoming aware of the other's.
"Detson? Detson?" the man asked. "From where have you come?"
"Castle Rondoval," Pol replied.
"I thought the place deserted all these years. Who is lord there now?"
"I am."
There was a stirring beneath the brown coverlet. A big-jointed, dark-veined hand emerged. It moved slowly toward Pol's right wrist and plucked at the sleeve.
"Bare your forearm, if you please."
Pol reached across and did so.
Two fingers extended, Ibal traced the dragonmark. Then he chuckled and raised his eyes, staring at Pol, past him.
"It is as you say," he remarked. "I did not know of you--though I see now that you are troubled by more than one lingering thing from out of Rondoval's past,"
"That may well be," said Pol. "But how can you tell?"
"They circle you like swarms of bright insects!" Ibal said, still looking past him.
Pol consciously shifted into his second mode of seeing, and while there were many strands in the vicinity, he detected nothing which resembled a circling swarm of insects.
"I fail to observe the phenomenon myself. ..."
"Most certainly," the other replied, "for it has doubtless been constantly with you--and it would of course seem different to you than it does to me, anyway, if you could detect it at all. You know how sorcerers' perceptions vary, and their emphasis upon different things."
Pol frowned.
"Or do you?" Ibal asked.
When Pol did not reply, the old sorcerer continued to stare, narrowing his eyes to tight slits.
"Now I am not so certain," he said. "At first I thought that the disorganization of your lights was a very clever disguise, but now--"
"My lights?" Pol said.
"With whom did you serve your apprenticeship--and when did you undergo initiation?" the other demanded.
Pol smiled.
"I grew up far from here," he replied, "in a place where things are not done that way,"
"Ah, you are a Madwand! Preserve us from Madwands! Still... You are not totally disorganized--and anyone with that mark--" He nodded again at Pol's right arm "--must possess an instinct for the Art. Interesting ... So why do you travel to Belken?"
"To learn... some things."
The old sorcerer chuckled.
"And I go for self-indulgence," he said. "Call me Ibal, and accompany me. It will be good to have someone strange to talk with. Your man is not a brother of the Art?"
"No, and Mouseglove is not really my man--he is my companion."
"Mouseglove, did you say? I seem to have heard that name before. Something to do with jewels, perhaps?"
"I am not a jeweler," Mouseglove replied hastily.
"No matter. Tomorrow I will tell you some things that may be of interest to you, Detson. But it is still over half a league to the place where I intend to camp. Let us move on. Upward! Forward!"
The servants raised the litter and moved ahead with it. Pol and Mouseglove took up positions behind it and followed.
That night they camped amid the ruins of what might once have been a small amphitheatre. Pol lay troubled for a long while, in fear of the dreams that might come to him. He still had not spoken of these, for in daytime the things of sleep seemed far away, but when the stillness descended and the fire dwindled the deeper places of shadow seemed filled with faces, as if some ghostly audience capable of seeing beyond the cowl of sleep had come together here to watch his journey into the place of baleful lights and screaming winds and cruelty. He shuddered and listened for a long time, his eyes darting. He knew of no magic to affect the content of his dreams. And he wondered again as to their significance, partly with the mind of one whose culture would have seen them in psychopathological terms, partly with the freshly tuned awareness that in this place another explanation could as readily apply. Then his thoughts began to drift, back to the encounter with the sorcerer who had tried to kill him at Rondoval. The dreams had begun almost immediately after that, and he wondered whether there could be a connection. Had the other laid a spell upon him before he had died, to trouble his sleep thereafter? His mind moved away, lulled by the steady creaking of insects in the distant wood. He wondered what Mark would have done. Looked for some drug to block it all out, perhaps. His mind drifted again....
The movement. Now a familiar thing. The fear was gone. There was only anticipation within the rapid and disjointed series of images by which he moved. There was the Gate, and...
It stopped. Everything stopped. He was frozen before the image of the partly opened Gate. It was fading, insubstantial, going away, and there was a hand upon his shoulder. He wanted to cry out, but only for a moment.
"It's all right now," came a whisper, and the hand left him.
Pol tried to turn his head, to sit up. He found that he could not stir. A large man, his face more than half-hidden in the shadow of his cowl, was rising from a kneeling position beside him, passing through his field of vision. Pol thought that he glimpsed part of a pale moustache and--impossibly--a shining, capped tooth.