[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She stumbles.She who falls for shadows shall soon weave her shroud!"Sickness punched Tahquil in the stomach.Her blood drained to her feet."We must find her immediately!" she cried."Come, Cait! Ho, nygel now's the time to renderassistance! Obban tesh , I should have known better than to let her from my sight." She grasped Caitri'shand."Stay with me, Caitri.Tully, prithee do not leave us.Against a ganconer we are as sparrows to ahawk.""This way, I ween," honked the urisk, leading the way.Into the darkling woods they plunged.A very faint, faraway music drifted through the arbors of Cinnarine, such tinkling music as might beproduced by diminutive needles, delicately tuned, hung and struck with tiny drumsticks of iridium.A lightbreath of shang wind, only the edge of a greater unstorm rolling toward the east, briefly flicked overCinnarine in passing.By its fires and velvet darknesses the companions made their way.They passedthrough colonnades of dark electrum, where silver branches dipped, picked out with mercurial leaves,along fructuous avenues arched over with trees of solid gold and then through sylvan palaces upheld withpillars of diamond and emerald, coronaled with flickering lights.Hooded were the mortals not so thewights.This was their element and would not mock them by replication.The thin sound of singing camethreading through the trees.Following it, the searchers found Viviana.Death by pining is a protracted affair.She was alive, although she had already begun to die, unaware ofher condition.Untaltried, she sat alone at the edge of a glade, wearing a pair of long red gloves.AsTahquil and Caitri approached it became apparent that Viviana's hands were, in fact, bare.Bloodglistened all over them, coating her arms to the elbows.Between her fingers she held a green pulp ofnettles, which she was kneading.The prickles tore her flesh, but she worked on without a sound, withoutcomplaint.No tear blurred her lily cheek, and a woven circlet of willow osiers crowned her sunflowerPage 124 head.In a sweet voice, she sang the old folk song: All around my hat I will wear the green willow,And all around my hat, for a twelvemonth and a day,And if anyone should ask me the reason I'm wearing it,It's all for my true love who is far, far away. The courtier's shang image hovered around her like an aura.It must have been playing and replayingitself, but no change of expression flitted spectrally across the spectral copy of Viviana's features; herair-imprinted countenance, shadow-eyed and utterly without mirth, remained stagnant.They tried to dash the weeds from her hands, but she would not relinquish them.Neither would shespeak, nor look at her companions.Only she sighed deeply as though a wound bled inside her that couldnot heal.Pliable she was, and acquiescent.The spirit had been drained out of her.They raised her to her feet andled her away.She complied without demur."She's fa'en," mourned the urisk."The bairn's fa'en."The unstorm fled.When they were far away from that place, Tahquil said gently, "Viviana, give the nettles to me.They arehurting you."Viviana shook her head."When the flesh is parted from the fibers, then shall I take the fibers and weavethem.""What will you weave, Via?""I will weave my shroud," said the courtier, emotionlessly."For I have met the ganconer, in a bitter hour.I thought him a human sweetheart, but his lips were cold on mine and his breath as keen as death.Toolate I knew.No longer can I joy in life.He has left me now, but for love of him I must pine to my grave."Then Tahquil knew the full meaning of powerlessness, futility, and grief.Rage rose like magma to hereyes but streamed out as tears."Three guardians to guide us!" she railed loudly."Three we have to protect us and not one, not one ofyou has prevented this.Hundreds of leagues we traveled on our own.A thousand dangers we facedwithout assistance and we won through.Yet now, under your so-called patronage, one of us is doomed.Tully, you I cannot fault you gave us life in Khazathdaur, and on the slopes of Creech Hill you succoredus.But what use are you, swan, if you always come too late? And you, horse, what use are you?"The waterhorse bared his teeth, laying his ears flat.The swan-maiden uttered a sound like escapingPage 125 steam and raised her arms wide so that her feather cloak spread out like a black-petaled flower."Feather-wielder forgets!" she hissed savagely."Swan's sworn fealty in Cinnarine is finished.Honor isfulfilled.Horse of water has vowed to help freedom-spinner singly.Spelled wench, suffering, heartsickwench, she's no fret of horse or swan no holder of wight-service."Caitri sobbed.Wringing her hands, Tahquil felt the hard lump of the ring beneath the glove.Somehowthat pressure brought reassurance.Thorn's ring.She regained her composure."You are right," she said."I am sorry.I spoke rashly and without thought.Forgive me." Putting her armabout the little girl's shoulders, she said in a low voice, "Peace, Caitri be comforted.Do not lose hope.Maybe we shall find a cure." But even as the words left her lips the forlornness of that hope made themclang as hollow as bells.Both waterhorse and swan folded themselves into the pages of night."They are not far away," said the urisk."Ye can be certain they'll not abandon ye.""The swan has fulfilled her bond.Why does she remain?""In your ain words, tae which she agreed, she mun see ye safe at least tae Cinnarine.Ye hae her atcheckmate.There's a lingering effect o' such an indefinite phrase.Unwittingly ye might have bound her toye forever."Taking Viviana between them, her bloody elbows hooked through theirs, Caitri and Tahquil resumedtheir northward journey. At midnight, when they halted to rest, Viviana would not help them wash the blood from her hands.Shewould not look at the fruits they piled in her lap."'Tis nae use tryin' tae reason wi' her," compassionately explained the urisk.Despite his words, born ofhis ancient knowledge, Tahquil and Caitri tried to tempt their friend with the most succulent of fare.Ofcourse, it availed them not.At early morn, when the urisk had departed and the sun's newborn, age-old rays penetrated the canopy,making patterns through interlocking leaf-ovoids, Tahquil drew off her gloves."It has dawned on me with the day," she said to Caitri, "that this ring may have the power to heal."She took it off her finger and placed it on Viviana's.The courtier remained passive, whey-faced,vacant-eyed."Gramercie," she said, as automatically as a clockwork music box might strike its notes
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
