[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Behind, hermother's voice urged her forward.Ahead.Guihen! The wood-sprite playedtricks to frighten her away.With forced bravado she stood with hands onskinny hips."You can't make me go, Mother." The sound echoed hollowly fromthe rocks."And you!" she spat, facing about, "you can't scare me away, either.Both ofyou stop it.I'll do exactly as I please."The sense of presence behind evaporated, as if her mother's spirit hadwithdrawn.She thrust herself upward.Another step, then another.Herhead and shoulders were above the enclosing cleft.Limned against the moonlitsea were the black walls of the mage's keep but between her and thatdestination was a darker mass, not part of the rock."Guihen, let me pass."The blackness shifted, stretched upward in the shape of a man.A man.but not Guihen.Pierrette shrank back, her heart thumping.He was dark, and nofeathery willow leaves glimmered on his rough clothing.He towered over her.Acrudely woven kilt ended short of knees gnarled and twisted as old olivetrunks, calves thick with coarse black hair, and knotty feet with long, yellowtoenails.This was not Guihen.She forced her eyes upward, fearing what she would see.P'er Otho's Satan, with his bronze helmet and deer's horns, passedbefore her eyes, wavered, and faded.It was an ugly face but not a demon's.She met his eyes blue like her own, beneath bushy eyebrows.His nose twistedlike an old root, and his cheekbones flared.Deep crevices delimited thecorners of his narrow-lipped mouth, then lost themselves in a tangled blackbeard.A frightening face, but not Satan's, for there was no evil in it, only painlong denied, and unrelieved fatigue."Go back, child," the man said."Seekhappiness, for there is no joy in wisdom."No joy in wisdom? Was there joy in foolishness and ignorance? Then sheenvisioned Marie and her sweetheart Bertrand, gazing into each other's eyeslike placid sheep."I don't care about happiness," she said."I wish to learnmathematics, and magical words in strange tongues, and how to mix charcoal,brimstone flowers, and bitter salt without them goingpoof! in my face."The gaunt man nodded."Anselm's magics do that, sometimes.Spells don't workthe way they used to.The nature of magic has become twisted that's why he'strapped in that stone-heap, and can't visit your village any more." He sighed."But yes, Anselm can teach you," he admitted reluctantly, "if that's what youreally want.""It is," she stated but his words were hardly reassuring."Will I lose mysoul, as P'er Otho says?"The gaunt one grinned, displaying large, yellow teeth with gaps between."That frightens you? Good.Fearlessness and foolishness are one.Listen toPage 36ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlyour fear.Go home.I'm not going to let you pass." He spread his arms, andsplayed his fingers, which were long and gnarly, with huge knuckles, coveredwith a mat of black hair.Pierrette's eyes darted.On the left, she saw something massive that humpedup as big as a cow.Great yellow-green eyes glowed unnaturally.On the righteyes also glowed, a sickly hue, a dull phosphorescence.There was no way shecould get past the man and those.things.too."I'll come back," she said."I'll come back in daytime, when you're nothere.""What makes you so sure I'm a creature of the night?" he rejoined."When youhave answered your own questions about your soul, and all that then I won'tstop you.""I will," she said."Good-bye." He didn't answer.It was as if once sheturned from him, he just faded away.* * *Pierrette did think about it.She thought about P'er Otho's Christian heaven,which appealed to people whose lives were pointless repetition and gruelingwork.There should be more to eternity than refuge from the unendurable.Didshe really care if she was denied entrance to a tedious Heaven?Yet if the mage's spells were no more successful than her sooty experiments,what was the use? Can't I just go on as I have? she asked herself.That, shedecided, was what she would do, at least for now.Chapter 7 - The BlackTime ForeseenThe last of the olive pulp was discarded in a heap.Cool air had speeded thework of carrying baskets of fruit to the press and heavy jars of oil toGilles's storehouse.Pierrette's thoughts had a similar pace.The olive grove was real.The warmache in her arms at the end of a hard day was genuine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]