"Zimmer,.Paul.Edwin.-.Ingulf.The.MadUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zimmer Paul Edwin)

Her wide eyes filled with the same terror they had held when he had leaped with his knife from the boat. Suddenly her beauty flared around him; his passion burst and drained away in an instant of unendurable ecstasy, and he fell stunned to the floor.
He lay helpless as she limped past him, out of the cave and down to the sea. He tried to raise himself, to follow her, fighting his weakness, but could not even crawl.
Then the sweetness of her singing was like an icy wave in his blood, as she walked singing into the sea, and he heard the words of her songЧ
But mortals turn to dust and bone And leave you crying all alone . . .
Mastering his weakness, he dragged himself to the mouth of the cave. But all he saw was a seal skimming over the crest of the waves.
Paul Edwin Zimmer
Far had he journeyed since he had lurched at last from the cave, where he had lain mindless for two days. A madness had driven him to his boat, a madness to find that secret city and harbor of the Sea-Elves, where men do not go.
In Elthar, where the Guardians of the World watch over Y'Gora, and where dwell yet survivors of those first Elves who came to the world in the Age of Terror to join the battle against the Dark Powers, he got little help. It were best, he was told, that Mortal Men stay away from the Sea-People, for so little do they know of men that they do not realize how dangerous magic can be to them. For the Elves live by magic, and strong spells are nothing to them.
Tales were told him of men who wandered for years witless, lost in lovely dreams that Elves had woven for them, to ease, as they thought, the burden of mortal life.
But such tales did not turn the son of Fingold from his purpose. The Sages of Elthar shook their heads.
"He, too, has been touched by an Elf," they said.
He had told none his own story. But ancient maps and curious scraps of legend gave him hope, and he left Elthar. He tried to charter a boat to search the northern coasts, but none would consent to sail into those waters. Slave galleys of Sarlow hunted there, and sailors told of seeing white ships with glowing sails, and one of a far glimpse of white towers. But mortal ships avoided those waters, unless driven there by the lawless wind.
So he rode north and east from Elthar, asking questions of the friendly forest Elves. Silence he met most often, and a look of pity from star-keen eyes. But sometimes he got warnings, and some of these had helped him to guess regions worth searching.
He wandered long in the great forests of the northern coast of Galinor, near the edges of the Forest of Demons, and the western borders of the dreaded land of Sarlow. Once he escaped from a Demon by sheer luck, and once had to fight his way out of an ambush of goblin rat-folk. Once he blundered into a raiding party out of Sarlow, driving home their bound and weeping slaves. The great iron blade of his flail had sung
Ingulf the Mad 7
a new song for them, and left bodies sprawled among the tangled roots of trees, and the slaves weeping with joy.
South of him men dwelt in scattered farming villages, but along the coast he found only a single tiny fishing village, whose people grew silent when he spoke to them of Elves, and ran away when he asked if any had seen the white ships upon the ocean.
Hunters told him of paths in the forest where Elves had turned them aside. He found one of these and followed it.
A voice hailed him from a tree. Looking up, he saw peering between the leaves the wide eyes of an Elf.
"Turn back," the soft voice said. "This is no path for a Mortal Man to be taking."
"I have business with Falmoran of the Sea-Elves and his kin," Ingulf answered, his heartbeat unnaturally loud. The wise eyes looked at him in grave silence.
"Ride on, then," the Elf said, after a time. "And may all powers protect you among my kinsmen of the sea."
His quest ended, he sat on his horse and listened to the sad song the sea pours upon the shore. The towers reared up, as white as bone. Tales said they shone at night. Sailors feared to see their light.
The Twin Suns vanished in the opal sea. Slowly the peacock colors of the afterglow dimmed.
In his mind, her eyes were on him.
He spurred the horse down the long green slope, toward the towers and the sea. He saw no shapes on sand or stone between the towers; no sign that folk lived there, save that once he thought he saw a hint of motion near the sea, where the docks would be. But the street toward which he rode was empty.
Yet eyes were on him, ageless and bright.
Fiarril of the Sea-Elves stroked the strings of his harp.
"One comes," he said, "who has about him the sadness of Mortal Men."
His fingers moved with that sadness, and wrung it sobbing from the strings of his harp. But his companion, Curulin, looked keenly at the man riding toward them through the dusk.
"There is more sadness than that upon him. ..." And
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Paul Edwin Zimmer
dunlin's harp took up that sadness, fingers hunting across the strings for some precious thing that had been lost.
The mourning sound of the strings reached Ingulfs ears, and he slumped in the saddle. Despair choked him; his worst fears rose in his mind. He pulled the horse to a stop, seeing again terror in her eyes, seeing her feet limping past, leaving him, leaving him forever. She might yet be far away in the sea, or perhaps the dangers of the sea had taken her. . . .
"There was a joy in him too," said Fiarril. His fingers danced across the strings, in a shimmer of delight and of love. "Listen! It is to a tryst that he comes!"
Ingulf pounded his heels into his horse's sides, urging him on. Like an echo of his elation the music was around him, pulsing with the joy in his veins. Airellen! He would see her soon, tonight. . . .
Against Fiarril's music the fingers of his companion played an undercurrent of lust.
Ingulf rode between tall towers, and in his mind her eyes glowed. Unseen Elves watched him gallop through the twilight, their music all around him. White stone rang beneath the horse's hooves. Wild music Filled him; and drunk with it, he spurred the horse recklessly.
The boom of the waves filled the streets like the snores of a giant.
He pulled his horse to a stop. All about him tall figures stared at him with huge eyes that were inhumanly bright. There were women among them, slender, fine-bonedЧ
Was she here? Airellen! Where was Airellen? He leaped from the saddle and ran into the crowd, searching for her. Where was she? These were her kind, frail-boned, with wide eyes in fragile faces, and hair like cloaks of shadow on their backsЧbut she was not among them. Emptiness and longing battled the joyous music. Where was she?
Beautiful as these might be, none was she, none was Airellen, none could quench the longing in him. The center of his life had been taken from him; the heart of the universe was gone! Where was she? Where was she?
He ran, searching frantically through the crowd. Beautiful
Ingulf the Mad 9
inhuman face after face turned wide eyes on him, and was not hers. Panic filled him. Where was she? Where was she?
Fiarril's fingers followed his mood, shifting to a mad quest across the strings.
Cold stars pricked through the sapphire of the sky. Was it the color of her eyes? He could not remember, could not rememberЧ
Where was she? Where was she?
The people of the city made way for the madman who charged through them, looking from face to face. Wide, innocent eyes stared at him, wondering. The towers glowed silver light on white stone streets. Moons hung in the sky like pearls.