The Windsingers Series: The Complete 4-Book Collection. Megan Lindholm

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СКАЧАТЬ behind them,’ Ki was moved to say. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ Someone mumbled a response to this. In another place, another Ki raised a tiny cup and tossed it off. It tasted like nothing now. She watched them go, Sven and Rissa laughing, Lars bouncing on the shining black haunches of the horse. Rom’s hooves threw bits of road up behind him. The grays plodded on. The wagon swayed and squeaked.

      ‘Over the hill the three rode,’ sighed Ki. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ A far wind sighed in the trees. A dampness in Ki’s throat. The presence watched with Ki as Rom disappeared over the long rise of hill. The blue sky rested on the hill top, empty. They were gone. ‘I came behind, too slow,’ grieved someone. ‘Drink with me to this sorrow.’ The wind stirred the tall grasses by the road and they rustled dismally. But the day was bright, and Ki on the wagon smiled and swallowed. There was a warm patch of air beside her, warning her that this was enough. Time to come back now. Time to stop. Ki ignored it. There was something she had to do. A task, a chore not to be neglected. Suddenly she was seized by a compulsion to see the other side of the hill. She wanted to whip up the team, shake them into a trot, a ponderous gallop, to crest that rise. But she did not. On they plodded, the wagon creaking cheerfully. Ki could not understand why she smiled, why she did not stand and lash the team into action. Someone was tugging at her, dragging at her arm. There was no one there. The wagon creaked on, inexorably. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Clop, clop, clop, slowly on the rocky road. She crested the rise.

      Ki screamed, wordlessly, endlessly. She could not draw a breath for words. The howl of her grief rushed out of her. She heard that howl bounce back to her, an echo careening back from nowhere.

      Suddenly another Ki was aware and fighting. This was hers, hers alone to bear. They must not see, she must not see. She must not think of what she saw. Harpies take the softest meat. Cheeks of face and round child bellies, buttocks of man, soft visceral tissue, haunch of horse. Don’t see, don’t hear, she begged. Harpies, two blue-green, flashing. Laughing, screaming, tumbling in the air above Ki. Beauty keen as a knife, cold as a river. Whistling their mockery at her loss. Ki could not comprehend her own pain. Not again, not again, someone screamed. The closer she moved to the bodies, the fiercer came the pain, like a heat radiated by a fire. To scream was not enough. She could not cry. She howled like a beast. She must not let them see the Harpies, see how they circled above her, screaming with laughter as she howled.

      The presence engulfed Ki, pulled her down. She fought it. It could not take her. She would not let it wander and look where it wanted. But the presence was strong. It dragged her back, taking her back to the world where Sven was already yellow bones. Ki struggled fiercely, and suddenly they both fell into a deep. Down they went in a swirl of red and black. Then the presence was gone and Ki was alone. She floated, she swirled with the warm and sleepy waters. Her ears hummed and buzzed. The waters were deep and Ki was deep within them, moving through them, though she did not swim. She slid through their warm, liquid touch without effort. Ki watched with lazy eyes as a flaming Harpy swirled past her in the current. His smoking plumage trailed behind him. She saw the unborn Harpy slide past her, twirling with the momentum of his smashed egg. She watched a Harpy and a woman fall slowly, beautifully, down the face of a rocky cliff. The Harpy body hit the trees first, went spinning gracefully down, to land and crumple gently, artistically. It was all most interesting and amusing. And the waters were deep and very warm.

      A table. A long table. Many faces. Someone was holding her in her chair. What had happened to Cora? Why was Rufus helping her away from the table? So pale she was, stumbling as she walked. Who had felled that oak of a woman?

      Ki felt her teeth chattering on the rim of an earthenware mug. Milk. They poured milk into her, laced with some fiery stuff. Haftor’s homely face leered close to hers. She jerked her head back. It slammed into someone’s chest. Groggily, she tilted her head back. Lars. She grimaced apologetically. His stern face did not change.

      Ki swept the common room with confused eyes. What was everyone so excited about? They were all talking over a loud hum, milling about, and eating vast quantities of food very rapidly. ‘Eat, eat, eat.’ It was Lars, speaking behind her. Why did he nag her so?

      The clamor of voices began to be distinguished into separate speakers, into words and sentences with meaning. Lars stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, keeping her from sagging from the chair. Haftor – shaggy-haired, ugly Haftor – was holding a cup for her. She could not see what made the loud humming.

      ‘It will dissipate the effect. Please, Ki, eat. It will help Cora break the link if you do. Please, Ki.’ Lars’s voice came clear suddenly through the babble about her. The cup came back, and Ki drank deeply in long, shuddering gulps. When it was empty, Haftor set it back on the table. The humming faded to a secret singing like a gnat in her ear. She looked into Haftor’s stormy face. His dark blue eyes were hard, cold.

      Reality snapped back into focus for Ki. Abruptly she shook herself free of the supporting hands. She would have sprung up from her chair, but her legs would not obey her. Lars stepped away from her.

      ‘Haftor, get her to eat. Let me see what I can do to settle things. Gods, Ki.’ Lars stood looking down at her, shaking his head. He gave a small sigh, as if words were not sufficient. Then he moved off, circling the table, touching a shoulder here, patting a child reassuringly as he passed. Many of the faces that turned to him were marked by recent tears. As Lars moved about, the jabber of disturbed voices dropped to an agitated mutter, scarcely louder than the hum in Ki’s ears. But the guests sitting closest to Ki were silent, their faces averted from her. All were eating hastily, as if possessed of a great impartial hunger. No one was savoring the carefully prepared dishes. They could have been eating cold congealed porridge, with each one assigned to consume a certain amount. Haftor had taken Rufus’s chair, beside Ki, and was eating in the same bizarre manner. He seemed to feel her eyes on him. He looked up at her. Fascination warred with disgust. Watching her face, he chewed rapidly and swallowed. His dark eyes were deep glacial blue.

      ‘What happened?’ Even as she spoke, Ki was aware of how inane she sounded. She felt as if she had been abruptly awakened from a deep and dream-filled sleep, to be plunged into the middle of this strange activity.

      Haftor ran his tongue around inside his mouth and decided to speak. ‘What happened, Ki, is that my aunt and cousins were disturbed by how long it took for news of Sven’s death to reach them. In their haste, they called the Rite immediately. They put someone in a position to do a lot of people a lot of harm … and she did. Some are saying from malice toward us. Some, like Lars, are pleading it was ignorance.’

      Haftor savagely forked up a piece of meat. Ki remained staring at him, chilled by the wrath of his words, cut by the coldness of his manner. He paused, the mouthful suspended on his fork.

      ‘Eat!’ he commanded her, jabbing his own loaded fork in the direction of her plate. Ki looked down. She found with surprise that someone had heaped high the plate before her. ‘The more and the faster you eat, the better. It will melt away the effects of the liquor, break all the links between us.’ Haftor looked about the table, at the people gobbling large mouthfuls of food. ‘This is parody,’ he growled. ‘Sven was a man among us, a good man. To see people at his Rite eat this way, to chase away the moment of sharing, rather than to savor it.’ He shook his head, baffled, and turned his attention back to his plate.

      Ki ate methodically, moving food as if she were forking hay. She tried to fit the pieces into her head so that they made a sensible pattern. She knew better than to try to ask questions of Haftor at this juncture.

      This was to have been a sharing, this Rite of Loosening. A dim understanding came to her. She had gone back to Sven’s death time, and they had come with her. This was their lessening of grief. She would have to answer no endless, awkward questions, speak no details best forgotten. They had seen it all, as she had, and shared it. And had she let them? She did not know. She had tried not to, that she СКАЧАТЬ