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

Where was she? Where was she? Fiarril's fingers hunted on the strings. Panic flooded Ingulf, and sickened him.
Then, far away down the white avenue, he saw her.
She wore a gown of velvet blue, and walked with another woman of the Sea-Elves. Joy leaped in him, and Fiarril's music echoed it.
He began to run toward her, then controlled himself. Wrestling with his breath, he made himself walk to meet her, while music swirled around him in surges of glory.
She looked up. Her eyes came to him. For just a second, terror flickered in their depths.
Then she looked past him, through him, as though he were not there at all.
Harpstrings crashed in a tangled discord. He stood rooted, staring at her through a blur of tears.
She walked past him, without a glance. His heart was lurching crazily in his chest. Panic hunted him up and down the strings of Fiarril's harp.
She walked on with the other, and he, scarcely knowing what he did, followed, like a moth flying to a flame.
Perhaps, he thought madly, she had truly not seen him. Perhaps she had not known him in the twilight. PerhapsЧ
What other hope had he?
He followed, and then he was walking beside her. Surely she must see him!
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He reached out, timidly, and touched her hand. She went on walking.
"Airellen!" His voice was a thin sea-bird's wail, the cry of some lost thing. She walked on, as if she had not heard.
Fiarril's harp sobbed out a sorrow that could not be borne, and stopped.
Booming surf echoed between the towers. Ingulf stared into the darkness. The crashing waves called to him, promising peace, promising forgetfulness, in deep salty pools. His thoughts shattered in spray on the stone of her silence.
He walked toward the ocean, toward forgetfulness. The sea had brought Airellen to him, and only the sea could help him now. The deep tides would take him; the eels would feast; the churning sand would polish his bones.
Fiarril stirred, blinked the tears from his eyes, and set his hands to the strings of his harp.
Water hissed on sand. Fiarril's fingers rippled over the strings.
Music that was filled with the beauty and glory of life shimmered in Ingulfs ears. His feet dragged on toward the sea; and the music did not slow them or turn them.
Without Airellen the beauty of life was only emptiness and mockery. Sand blew across white stone by his feet. Pallid towers pointed at the stars. Sea-surge purred before him: harpstrings tinkled behind.
Fiarril plucked wonder from the strings of his harp; wonder, adventure, glory. The wide world unseen; perils not yet faced; women not yet taken. The music ran along Ingulfs nerves and sent chills to his shoulders, but he did not turn aside.
What adventure could be as great as death? All mortal lands were poisoned now; no wonder was greater than the depths of Airellen's eyes; no peril more terrible than the attempt to approach her once more.
Ingulf passed out of the long street between the towers, to see the black water frothing on the beach in starlight, and beyond, the long moving folds of ocean falling toward the shore. Almost the chiming of harpstrings was lost in the pulse of the waves. In a moment, he would be free of its torment, and soon, of all torment.
Ingulf the Mad //
Lastly, and in desperation, Fiarril struck fear upon the chords of his harp, evoking the worm that hides within the spine, and flinches instinctively in its bony armor when death comes too near.
Ingulfs feet stopped on the sand, and his body rebelled against his will. Sand shifted under his feet as he struggled to move them.
And Fiarril called others of his kindred to join their harps to his, and herd the unhappy mortal back from the beach, away from the call of the sea.
Shocked by his sudden cowardice, Ingulf stared at the surging waves. He had faced the foeman's steel in a thousand fights. All his life he had traveled in tiny boats over the broad ocean. How, then, could he be afraid of death? Afraid of the sea?
He strove to drive his body on, but his limbs trembled, and would not move.
About him Fiarril and his kin wrapped a tune of illusion and enchantment, and phantoms thronged toward him over the sands of the beach. And Fiarril played shyness and embarrassment on Ingulfs nerves, as he looked up to see people coming toward him over the sand. The music put the thought into his head that, if he went into the water, these people would drag him out before he could drown, and question him, and Airellen might not wish to be talked of.
And a tall young man stood forth, and his voice was strong and proud as he called to Ingulf:
"Well met, Mortal Man! I hear you are a swordsman. You shall match strokes with me!"
And the rage which had smoldered in Ingulf since Airellen had turned from him wrenched at his muscles, and he and the young man fought up and down the beach with swords that seemed at times to have dulled blades, and at times seemed to be sharp.
The youth fought like a skilled warrior and practiced, while Ingulf himself had not drawn blade in many months of wandering. Yet the skill in his arm had not deserted him, and only once did the other blade slip past his guard, and that was a harmless glancing touch on his left shoulder, with a blunted
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blade. But Ingulf touched the other again and again, while warlike music stirred the air around him, and almost, for a time, hid from him his sorrow.
Then, as they fenced, he saw Aiiellen, watching him from beyond the crowd. His heart leaped, and he sprang boldly in, to show her the sword-skill for which he was justly famed. . . .
She turned away, and walked back into the city.
Black rage overcame him, and he struck off the youth's head with a sword that was suddenly sharp in his hand, then threw the blade aside and paced on the sand.
Fiarril's fingers whirled over the strings as he tried to use pride to drive away despair. But Ingulfs sick hopelessness was too deep.
Ingulf strode up and down the beach, and the pain that was inside him turned the whole world bitter and evil.
Then a woman who wore Airellen's shape came to him, and took him to her bed. He knew she was not Airellen, but he went with her.
And the Sea-Elves clustered about Fiarril, questioning, for the madness and sorrow of this mortal filled them with wonder. But Fiarril shook his head sadly, while his fingers wove spells on the strings of his harp.
"It is the rushing by of his days that makes him so," said one Elf, gravely. "He knows that he cannot wait, as we can, to let time soothe his hurts. For he knows that each day that rushes by brings death that much closer."
"Mortals are always throwing away their lives for some silly reason," said another, shaking his head. "They set no value on their lives, for they know their lives are forfeit from birth, and there is no reason to fear death."
Fiarril left them still talking, and went to find Airellen. But when he had found her, he feared there was no help there; for she seemed to care nothing for Ingulfs despair.