Echoes of the Goddess. Darrell Schweitzer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ that holiest of men, and paid heed when the Guardian leaned over and whispered a command in his ear.

      Obediently he went at once, parting the crowd as he passed, and made his way in silence out of the land of Randelcainé, wandering ever northward, knowing many hardships as he grew from boy into man, never able to rest until he came to that place where he could resume his music and his song. He crossed mountain ranges on the backs of wild beasts. Though the oceans would no longer bear him up; he couldn’t walk on water anymore; he crossed them on the backs of whales, taming and commanding each with that single word the Guardian had spoken, until at the very last, close to death, he reached a warm valley in the middle of the ice country at the top of the world.

      There he crawled to the base of a tree and sat up, his back against the tree, the warmth of the valley washing over him, bringing faint sensation into his frozen legs. He dreamed once again of the Bright Lady, and once more touched the strings of his lyre. As before, he played without ceasing, and the spirits and the Powers swarmed around him like bright bees.

      In Randelcainé, those who had heard him could not return to their lives after having known such beauty. Some retired to monasteries and caves, where they worshipped little sounds and shadows and the rustlings of leaves and conversed with the silence. The streets of the city were quiet for a generation. Those who did not shut themselves away lived out their lives in longing, wishing only to travel beyond death so that they could hear that song again. Thereafter, all those who died were dressed in traveling cloaks and shoes, and staves were put into their hands, that they might rise from their funeral biers and walk the long road into paradise.

      In time Ain Harad was united with his family, for the lord of the goats had become the lord of the dead. Those very near to death could just barely hear his song, faint and far away, growing louder as they sank out of this life. First his father came to him, then his mother, then his brother Zadain, who was slain in battle.

      Thus, by the wisdom of the Guardian, the world came a little closer to order amid the chaos that followed the death of the Goddess.

      THE STORY OF A DADAR

      It was in the time of the death of the Goddess that the thing happened, when the Earth rolled wildly in the dark spaces without any hand to guide it, or so the poets tell us, when Dark Powers and Bright drifted across the land, and all things were in disorder.

      It was also in the open grasslands that it happened, beyond the end of the forests, where you can walk for three days due south and come to the frontier of Randelcainé. All was strange to me. I had never been there before, where not a tree was to be seen, anymore than I had been to a place where there are no stars. All that afternoon, my wife Tamda and I drove our wagon through the familiar woods. Slowly the trees began to seem farther apart, and there was more underbrush. I remember how the heat of the day faded quite quickly, and the long, red rays of the setting sun filtered between the trunks, almost parallel to the ground, giving the undersides of the leaves a final burst of color before twilight came on. The trees ahead of us stood in silhouette like black pillars, those behind us, in glory. Above, little birds and winged lizards fluttered in the branches. I reflected that these things had always been thus, even in the earliest times, when the great cities of the Earth’s mightier days stood new and shining, and other gods and goddesses, the predecessors of the one which had just died, ruled the sky. Those ancients could just as well have been seeing this sunset and this forest through my eyes.

      Then a wagon wheel sank axle-deep in mud, and I didn’t have time to reflect on anything. The two of us struggled and gasped in pained breaths that we weren’t young anymore. If only our son were still with us.… But he had gone away to serve the Religion. What is religion when your wheel is stuck?

      When at last the wagon rolled free, stars peered down between the branches. The night air seemed very cold. We sat still, panting, until Tamda had the good sense to get our cloaks, lest the chill get into us.

      So it was that we emerged from the forest in darkness. At first I was hardly aware that there were no more trees. It seemed merely that there were more stars, but then the moon came up and revealed the vast dark carpet of the plain rising and falling before us. Imagine a fish, which had always inhabited the dark and narrow crags among the rocks at the bottom of the sea, suddenly rising up, into the open wonder of the sea itself. So it was. Overhead the Autumn Hunter was high in the sky. The Polar Dragon turned behind us, and the Harpist was rising. By these signs we knew our way. Neither of us wanted to stop for the night. I suppose plainsmen feel the same way, their first night in the forest. So we pushed on and shortly before dawn reached our destination.

      The village glowed on the plain like a beast with a thousand eyes, reclining there, alive with torches. We would never have found it otherwise. The houses were all curving humps of sod, hollowed out and walled with logs. Had they not been lit, we would have passed them in the night, thinking them little hills.

      We were expected. Everyone was awake and waiting. A man in a plumed helmet took our horse by the bridle and led us to a building larger than all the others.

      “Are you Pandiphar Nen?” asked the chieftain who stood at the door.

      “Yes. You sent for me,” I said. “You understand, then, that I do not heal broken bones, or cure any sickness which can be cured with a herb or a little spell?”

      “Yes, I do, or I would not have sent for you.”

      “The price is high.”

      “Please, bargain later. It is my daughter, sore afflicted. She has…left us. Her mind is in darkness, far underground.”

      Tamda and I climbed down from the wagon seat. I got my bag out of the back. We were shown inside. The house had but one room, and a fire burned in the middle floor. The smoke hole wasn’t large enough, and the air was thick. On a pile of hides to one side a maiden lay, her eyes open, but her gaze distracted. She did not seem aware of us. She rolled her head and muttered to herself. I listened for a moment, catching a few words, but most of it was strange to me.

      “Put the fire—out,” I said to those who had come in with us.

      “And leave us alone.” This was done. I waited for the smoke to clear.

      Then I made a mixture of the ground root of the death tree, the water of life, common flour to hold it all together, plus other ingredients, including something called Agda’s Toe. Agda was my master, to whom I had been apprenticed when I was fifteen, some thirty years before. Then I had believed he had an infinite supply of toes, which could be regrown whenever he cut them off and sold them to pharmacies all over the world, but of late I had had my doubts. He never took off his shoes in public.

      I ate a spoonful of the mixture and washed it down with wine. I sang the song of the false death, with Tamda at my side to make sure that I did not truly die. She would hold my wrist and take my pulse, counting one heartbeat a minute, and listen for a shallow breath about as often. If I got into trouble she would shout my name and call me back. She alone had this power.

      I departed. At once my awareness was out of my body, sharing that of the girl. I saw through her eyes. Tamda and I stood absolutely still, distorted out of shape, like tall sculptures of glowing jade. The room was full of a white mist, and in it swam things like the luminous skeletons of fishes, and some, like impossible herons made of coral sticks, walked on a surface below the floor, wading in the earth. They sang to me, trying to lull me into sleep within a sleep, but I paid them no heed. They were common spirits of the air. I had seen them many times before.

      I turned inward. Indeed, the girl’s soul was far beneath the earth. I had a sensation of sinking a long way in thick, muddy darkness before I had an impression of a hunched СКАЧАТЬ