The Demon King. Cinda Williams Chima
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Название: The Demon King
Автор: Cinda Williams Chima
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9780007353248
isbn:
“Thanks for the story and all,” Han said, “but I’ve got to go. He scrambled to his feet and slid his backpack over one shoulder. “I’ll pick up the bottles at the dog run.”
“Sit, boy!” Lucius commanded. “You got this story started, now you got to hear me out.”
Fuming, Han settled back on the creek bank. He’d never signed on for a monologue.
When Lucius was satisfied he’d held his audience, he continued. “The clans recognized the lineage of queens, so Hanalea acted as go-between. Think of what that must’ve been like. Negotiating with the clans on behalf of your sweetheart’s murderers.” Lucius smiled sadly. “But Hanalea had grown up. She was strong and smart as well as beautiful. She reclaimed the power of the Gray Wolf line. What grew out of those talks was the Naéming.”
Lucius ticked off the tenets of the Naéming on his gnarled fingers. “In exchange for healing the world, the clans put wizards on a short leash. High magic and wizards were forbidden in the Spirits. They’re confined to the Vale and the flatlands. The clan speakers have temples in Fellsmarch, and the queens got to go to temple once a week to learn the true faith. The Wizard Council chooses the most powerful wizard in the Fells as High Wizard and head of the council, but he is magically bound to the land and the queen, and ruled by her. The queens are fostered in the camps as children.” Lucius smiled faintly. “And wizards ain’t allowed to marry our queens anymore, because that gives them too much power.”
“Hanalea agreed to that?” Han said. Guess they put the queen on a short leash too, he thought.
Lucius nodded, as if he’d read Han’s mind. “The queen of the Fells is both the most powerful and the least free person in the entire queendom. She is a slave to duty once she comes of age.”
“But she’s the queen,” Han said. “Can’t she do whatever she wants?”
“Hanalea had learned the price of following her heart,” Lucius said. He paused, his face settling into sorrowful folds. “So she bent her knee for the greater good, and married somebody she didn’t love.”
Han frowned. The stories always ended with the destruction of the Demon King and the triumph of Hanalea. “So, who did she marry, then? Bayar was a wizard, so…?”
Lucius shook his head. “Poor Kinley Bayar met with an accident soon after the Breaking. She married somebody else.” After the rich details of the story so far, he seemed rather sketchy on that point.
Han stood again, then hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other, compelled to say something. “You know, Lucius, I’m practically grown. I’m too old for fairy stories.”
For a long moment the old man didn’t respond. “Don’t ask for the truth, boy, unless you’re ready to hear it,” Lucius said, staring sightlessly out at Old Woman Creek. “Just remember what I said. Keep the amulet hid, and stay out of the way of the Bayars. They got too much power as it is. If they find out you have it, they’ll kill you for it.”
The city of Fellsmarch nestled at the edge of the Vale, a fertile valley where the Dyrnnewater shouldered its way between the rocky cliffs of Hanalea and the rippling skirts of Alyssa, her sister peak. The Spirit-dwelling clan often referred to residents of the Vale as flatlanders. The Valefolk in turn looked down on the city of Delphi and the plains of Arden to the south.
The Vale gleamed like an emerald set high in the mountains—protected by the frowning peaks said to be the dwelling places of long-dead upland queens. It was warmed year-round by thermal springs that bubbled under the ground and broke through fissures in the earth.
True flatlanders—citizens of Tamron and the kingdom of Arden beyond Southgate—whispered that the Spirit Mountains were haunted by demons and witches and dragons and other fearsome things—that the very ground was poison to any invader.
Highlanders did nothing to dispel this notion.
Han’s teacher, Jemson, claimed that before the coming of the wizards and the breaking of the world, the Seven Realms were one great queendom ruled from Fellsmarch. Grain from Arden and Bruinswallow and Tamron filled her bread baskets. Fish from the coasts, and game from the Spirits, and gems and minerals from the mountains added to her prosperity. The queen and her court were patrons of the arts, and the city built music halls, libraries, temples, and theaters all over the queendom.
Though it had fallen on hard times in recent years, the city of Fellsmarch still hung raggedly on the bones of its glorious past. It was studded with elaborate buildings that predated the Breaking. Fellsmarch Castle had somehow escaped the wide-spread destruction, as had the temples of the speakers and other public buildings.
So when Han rounded the last curve of the Spirit Trail and looked down on the city of his birth, an urban forest of temple spires and gold-leafed domes greeted him, gleaming in the last rays of the dying sun. He couldn’t help thinking it looked better from a distance.
Lording over all was Fellsmarch Castle, with its soaring towers, a monument of marble and stone. It stood isolated, surrounded by the Dyrnnewater, untouchable as those who lived within its walls.
The City of Light, it was called, despite its long winter nights. There was even a period of time, around solstice, that the sun never rose at all. But on every other day, the sun flamed over Eastgate in the morning and kindled Westgate at the end of the day.
The Spirit Trail snaked down into the city and emptied into the first of a series of squares, the legacy of some long-ago royal architect. Connecting the squares was the Way of the Queens, the broad boulevard that ran the length of the city and ended at Fellsmarch Castle.
Han did not follow the Way of the Queens. Like it or not, he had business in Southbridge. He turned off into a series of ever-narrowing streets, burrowing deeply into a part of the city the queen never traveled to. As he left the Way behind, the buildings grew shabbier. People swarmed the streets, pinch-faced and wary-looking, prey and predators. Garbage moldered in the gutters and spilled out of bins.
The air reeked with the mingled stinks of cooking cabbage, wood smoke, privies and slop jars dumped into the street. It would be worse come summer, when the heat thickened the air into a dangerous soup that gave babies the croup and set old people coughing up blood.
At Southbridge Market, Han managed to unload the snagwort for a decent price, considering it was worthless. He could’ve sold it at Ragmarket, but didn’t want to risk it so close to home, where someone might remember him.
Leaving the market, he put on his street face and strode quickly and purposefully past the fancy girls and grifters and street-corner thugs that would be on you at any sign of weakness or fear. “Hey, boy,” a woman called, and he ignored her, as he ignored the glittery nobleman who tried to entice him into an alley.
Southbridge was the infection that festered under the seemingly healthy skin of the city. You didn’t go there at night unless you were big and well armed, and surrounded by big, well-armed friends. But daytime was safe if you used your head and kept aware of your surroundings. He wanted to clear Southbridge before it got dark.
To be fair, some might call Han’s own neighborhood a СКАЧАТЬ