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

But he only shook his head, sadly. "Some spells struggle against a man's nature. Easy it is to take those off. And some neither oppose his nature nor harmonize with it; those, too, are a simple matter. If he had felt no attraction to you other than that caused by the spell, then I could take it off him easily enough. But mis spell rides too well with his own mind. Only you can take it off."
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She closed her eyes, and her face twisted. Her hands closed around each other and writhed as though in pain. But her voice was level.
"What must I do, then?"
"You must be sure no liking for him clouds your mindЧnot even pity. You must take your dislike of him, or your indifference, whichever you truly feel, and you must cast it into the mirror of his mind, and forge a spell of emptiness, of petty rage and ugliness, of self-centered, careless mockery, and callous disregard, so that he will wish to be rid of you as much as you wish to be rid of him. Truth always conquers illusion: you must make him feel towards you as you feel towards himЧ"
"No!" Her voice broke, and a kind of terror came into her face. "No, I cannotЧ"
"You do care for him, then," said Dorialith, quietly. "I feared as much."
She looked at her hands, that were shaking, and knotting about each other.
"I did not mean to make him love me!" she cried. "He frightened me. He hurt me, but he was sorry afterwards, and very kind, and him so different from anyone I had ever met. But he frightened meЧhe laid his hands on me, his warm handsЧ" Her voice faltered in confusion; her hands took turns twisting her fingers. "IЧI had to make him let go of me! I could feelЧhe is a beast! I felt his need for me, throbbing through him, through us both, and IЧand IЧ"
"I know the spell you used," said Dorialith, gently. "No pleasure for you in that parting, only shame and fear: yet the moment's ecstasy you gave to him is more to him now than the rest of his life." He sighed sadly, and shook his head. "With no magic between you, he would still have come to love you. ..."
"But he doesn't love me!" she cried wildly. "It's not me he loves, not truly me at all! It's only the glamour, only the pleasure I can give! He doesn't love me, he only lovesЧ" She sobbed, and quieted, but still her hands writhed in protest.
"Can you create anything which does not spring from your own nature?" asked Dorialith wryly. "If so, treasure this gift,
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as one unique among living creatures. But no, Daughter. Were it only the illusion that he loved, Fiarril would have drawn him from you long since, with his own illusion, with the illusion of you that he wrought.
"But if you were to strip yourself of all illusion, and Fiarril and I together were to harp up the most radiant and compelling vision of you that might be dreamed ... the mortal would turn from it in an instant to find the real you. It is you that he loves."
"He is a beast!"
"Perhaps. But a beast that loves you, and will die without your help."
She stood silent, shrunken, hunched in upon herself, staring at her hands. "What the old songs say about Mortal MenЧis it true?" Her voice was a ghost of a whisper. "About ageЧ andЧandЧ"
"It is true, Daughter," said Dorialith sadly. "In a mere hundred years, alt that will remain of his flesh and blood will be his childrenЧif ever he has any. And that, Daughter, is the only thing you will ever be able to give him."
She shuddered convulsively, and looked up at him. "I do not understandЧI thoughtЧI thought, perhaps, if I did not speak to himЧ"
"You were afraid to speak to him," said Dorialith.
"And how should I dare to speak to him?" she cried wildly. uOh, you talk and talk of his suffering, but do you think I do not suffer? There is nothing I can do! You say he will die without my help, but he will die anyway! Nothing I can do will save him from that!"
"Yet if he lived out his span of years," said Dorialith, "or even if he died in battle, there might be great good he could be doing. But you have taken away his will to live. If you gave him hopeЧ"
"And what hope have I to give him? You have told me I cannot remove the spell, not ifЧwhat is it you would have me do? Tell me how I can help him!"
"Talk to him, if nothing else. Let him know, at least, that you can see him, that the poor creature can hope. ..."
"Hope again! I have no hope to give him. I could not bear
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to watch him age andЧchange andЧdie. No creature could bear that!" She buried her face in her hands. "What mournful lives Mortal Women must live!"
"He will not age right away," said Dorialith. "He is young yet. A good twenty years or more must pass before he begins to fail, and even in as short a time as that, a great many things may happen."
"Oh, indeed!" she said. "For one thing, if we keep talking till then, I may be able to make sense out of your hints and riddles! Is there a way to help him? What is it you want me to doT
"There is one thing you can do, which will help," said Dorialith. "Since you do love him, a little. Take him as your lover. Use the spell I gave you. It will not stop him from loving youЧit may not even take away all the glamour. But if his desire is fulfilled, time can do that. If he comes to love you as you love him, and no moreЧthen, as you tire of him, he will tire of you."
"And if I do not tire of him? If I find that I love him more, instead of less?"
"Then you can live happily until he dies."
"No! Have pity on me! You cannot ask that!" She broke into wild sobbing. "I cannot bear to watch him die! Have pity on me, Dorialith!"
"And how much pity have you shown him?" Dorialith's eyes flared in anger. "When he wounded you, he took the harpoon out, and cared for you until the wound healed. Can you not do as much for the wound you have given him?"
She shrank back before his anger. Her long fingers kneaded one another against the blue velvet of her gown.
"IЧI will talk to him," she said, tonelessly.
Alone in the tower room, Ingulf opened leaden eyes and stared at the glowing walls. For a time his numbed brain could make no sense of what he saw. Where was he? And what strange dreams had he been having?
Then memory came to him, and forced his unwilling limbs to sluggish motion. Airellen! She was here!
He staggered to the door, and stood leaning against the wall
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with his head whirling. How much of what he remembered was real, and how much dreams? It could not all have been real, surely?
Airellen! She had turned from him, walked away without a sign that she had heard his voice callingЧ
Yet also in his mind was the memory of her in this room with him, of her skin against his. . . .
He staggered down winding stone steps, around and around, as his brain whirled around and around. Airellen! Had he hurt her again? Was she angry? What had happened?
He stumbled through a door into starlight. The host of tiny moons glowed between the stars. Crashing, hissing surf echoed from glowing towers.