Crusader. Sara Douglass

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СКАЧАТЬ some aspect of the landscape,” Faraday said again, and looked at Gwendylyr steadily. “All of us.”

      “I know what I fear,” DareWing said, but Faraday would not let him finish, either.

      She stopped him with a gentle hand, leaving her chair to kneel beside him. “DareWing, I think I know what you fear, and I think I know how strong that fear is.”

      Faraday grinned, but sadly. “No wonder you have ground fever.” Then she raised her head and looked at the other three, keeping her hand on DareWing’s shoulder. “We must confront our fears first, and then, stronger, be ready to support DareWing. Goldman?”

      “What? Oh … I, ah …” Goldman lapsed into silence, his eyes unfocused, then his mouth thinned and his hands clenched on his knees.

      “I loathe dead ends,” he said, and Faraday nodded. Goldman was ever the aggressive, determinedly successful businessman.

      “There is nothing worse,” Goldman said, and his eyes were now flinty and hard, “than walking through the countryside and finding yourself in some dead end gully, and having to retrace your steps to find another way forward. It’s so time wasting!”

      “Non-productive,” Leagh said, understanding a little more the process they must all endure.

      “Yes!” Goldman said, and he stood and paced about the dome. “Dead ends are so frustrating! So pointless!”

      Faraday watched him carefully. It seemed almost as if hate consumed Goldman, and she realised that somewhere here was a deeper lesson they must all learn.

      “So pointless,” Goldman said again, and then he vanished.

       Goldman found himself standing before the infuriatingly calm — and very high and very steep — rock wall of the canyon, and he raged.

       He had walked hours to get to this point, put in effort and time that could have been spent more profitably elsewhere.

       He had walked and walked down this canyon, thinking it would lead him to a better life, more money, and even, perhaps, a profounder understanding of life itself, and all it had presented him with was a dead end, a rock wall, a point past which Goldman could not walk.

       He raged. Was it possible to demolish the dead end? Perhaps a force of several hundred men armed with pickaxes and shovels could clear it in a week or so. Perhaps a smaller force of men armed with fire powder could destroy it in less time. Something had to be done to force this rock wall to give way to Goldman’s needs and ambitions and…

       … and Goldman quailed at the force of his rage. Why did he think such things? Why was he so angry?

       He was railing at a stand of rock, for the Field’s sake!

       Goldman stared at the rock wall and wondered how best to combat his inner frustration and anger.

       You have walked to this rock wall, he thought, and thus there must needs be a purpose to this dead end. What is it?

       He sat down cross-legged on the ground and stared at the rock.

       “What do you have to teach me?” he asked, and instantly all his frustration and hate fell away and he felt a great joy fill him.

       The rock absorbed the joy … and then it leaned forward and began to speak to Goldman in a very earnest manner.

      Goldman dusted off his tunic, and smiled at the four faces staring at him.

      “Your turn,” he said to Gwendylyr.

       She was in the garden, almost incandescent with fury.

       How long had she tended that hedge? How many hours had she pruned and clipped? How many days had she spent carefully digging in the soil about its roots to add light and air and fertiliser?

       And the hedge was so necessary! Its (once) neatly-clipped length had tidily divided field from garden (and what a neat garden, with its carefully measured garden beds and precise rows of stakes), providing the line that everyone needed between order and disorder.

       But now disorder had invaded the garden.

       Disorder in the form of a rigorous ivy. It had taken over the hedge, weaving and creeping its way through the hedge’s dark interior spaces before bursting triumphantly through to wave long, gleeful tendrils into the bright summer air down the length of the hedge.

       The hedge was ruined! It was doubtless dying! How could it support the parasitic ivy and still manage to keep —

      Gwendylyr realised suddenly that she was very, very afraid. There was no dividing line between order and disorder, was there? It was all a lie. Disorder would win every time. It could never be kept at bay.

       Gwendylyr backed slowly away, terrified that one of those tendrils would reach out and snatch at her at any moment. Where could she hide? Was there anywhere to hide? Perhaps the cellar … surely the dark would keep the ivy at bay … the dark would be safe… safe…

       Gwendylyr stopped, appalled. She would hide herself in the dark the rest of her life to avoid disorder?

       Was that a life at all?

       She swallowed, stepped forward, raised an arm, and took one of the waving tendrils gently in her hand.

       “Very pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said.

       “Likewise, I am sure,” said the ivy, and the sun exploded and showered both hedge and ivy and Gwendylyr in freedom.

      “Leagh?” said Gwendylyr.

       “No! No!” Leagh screamed, and grabbed at her belly. It was completely flat. Barren.

       As barren as the landscape about her. She ran, more than half-doubled over her empty belly, through a plain of hot red pebbles. A dry wind blew in her face, whipping her hair about her eyes.

       The sky was dull and grey, full of leaden dreams.

       “No, no,” she whispered. She was trapped in a land that had stolen her child to feed its own hopelessness. Both sky and ground were sterile, and both had trapped her.

       “No.” Leagh sank to the ground, gasping in pain at the heat of the pebbles, and then ignoring the burns to curl up in a ball.

       Nothing was left. Best to just give up. Best to die.

       Nothing worth living for.

       She cried, her breath jerking up through her chest and throat in great gouts of misery. She wanted to die. Why couldn’t she die? Wasn’t there anyone about who could help her to die? Why couldn’t someone just put a knife to her (hopelessly barren) belly and slide it in? СКАЧАТЬ