Louise Cooper - Indigo 1 - Nemesis

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 364.74KB 113 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

TO YOUR PEOPLE YOU ARE DEAD

Anghara slowly raised her head. The bright emissary was watching her, but the spark of pity in its eyes

had dimmed. "They will mourn your family, and they will mourn you, even though you still live. You must

take on a new identity and leave the Southern Isles. Cairn Caille is barred to you."

Anghara's face was grey as old parchment. Her gaze lit on one of the shards from the shattered timepiece

that lay upon the floor. It caught the morning light and winked back a rainbow flicker of purplish blue; it

was the shade that her people had always associated with death. It was also, by a terrible irony, the color

of her own eyes. She looked up from the shard of glass and met the emissary's gaze. Her eyes were

haunted, and she said:

"I shall be called Indigo."

NEMESIS

BOOK ONE OF INDIGO

LOUISE COOPER

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or

events is purely coincidental.

NEMESIS

A different version of this novel under the same title has been published in the United Kingdom by Unwin Hyman (Publishers) Lid.

A TOR Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

49 West 24 Street

New York, NY 10010

Cover art by Robert Gould

ISBN: 0-812-53401-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 88-51638

First edition; June 1989

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat

Sighing through all her Works gave sign of woe

That all was lost

Milton: Paradise Lost

For the great cats, the great apes, the wolves, the bears,

and all other creatures whose "humanity" puts humanity to

shame.

•PROLOGUE•

The legend of the Tower of Regrets: Cushmagar the harper's telling.

There was a time, a time and a time, before we who live now under the sun and the sky came to

count time. Before the brown hare ran and played on the southern tundra, before the great gray

wolf came to the forests, before the winding of the hunter's horn sounded among the summer

trees. An ancient time and an ill time, when things that should not be walked upon the land, when

long day became long night, when summer clothed itself in winter, and that which should be north

was south, while that which should be south was north. Then did the Earth our Mother cry out,

for her children had been moved to great evil against her. They had taken their fill of her bounty

and then they had taken more than was their need or their birthright. They stripped her beauty

from her flesh, then they devoured even her very flesh, until she was a thing of bare bone. In the

lonely night she wept for her wounds that would not heal, and she cried for her children to restore

to her that which they had stolen; but her children heard her not. Her children laughed and sang

and told tales of their own prowess, and in their boastful revels they heard not the cries of the

Earth our Mother,

And so for long and long did the Earth languish in her pain and her shame. She granted

the gift of life to her children, and her children took all she gave and more, while repaying nothing

in fee. And the Earth cried, and still her children heard her not.

But in that time of evil, while our Mother Earth writhed in pain, there came a man, a good

man among ill men. A man of the islands, son of the sea, brother of the storm, a man whose heart

was moved to outrage at the vilification of Mother Earth by the vampire-children who suckled at

her desiccated breast. This man's name we know not, but his memory will be forever lauded in our

songs and in our stories; for he it was, he and no other, who cried out against his fellows. He it

was who stood alone as the champion for whom our mother cried. And he it was on whom she

bestowed her greatest blessing, and on whom she laid her greatest burden.

For there came a time when the Earth could sustain her grief no longer. Wrath filled her

at last, where before she had felt only pain. This wrath fell upon her children who had so abused

her, and she rose up to take her vengeance on the perpetrators of evil. But even in her rage she

was moved to pity for the man of the islands; and one night as he slept upon his bed the Earth

spoke to him with the voice of the murmuring sea, and the voice of the sweet summer breeze, and

the voice of the singing bird. She sent a bright creature to stand at the foot of his bed, and that

creature spoke to the man of the islands with all those voices and with the voice of the Earth

herself. And the bright creature said:

"Man of the islands, you have championed the Earth our Mother, but yours has been a

lonely voice and alone amid chaos. Now I come to speak to you with the voice of our Mother, and

I tell you this: the children of the Earth have betrayed their nurturer's trust, and the time is at

hand when they must pay the price for that betrayal. Our Mother's wrath is roused, and only the

greatest of sacrifices will slake her thirst for vengeance. "

And the man of the islands cried out in distress and he said to the bright creature, "How

can this terrible thing be averted?" And the bright creature spoke sternly, saying: "It cannot be

averted. Man must answer for what he has done, for if he does not, then the evil will continue and

the Earth our Mother will die. Do not plead, man of the islands, for your fellows. Listen, instead,

to the message I bring to you from Mother Earth, for by that and that alone may your race be

saved.''The man of the islands fell silent; for though he knew that he slept, he was wise enough to

know, too, that the bright creature spoke a deeper truth than that of any dream. And though his

heart was heavy with dread, he listened as he was bidden.

And the bright creature spoke again, and it spoke these words. "Man of the islands, the

Earth is moved to wrath, and her wrath will not be contained. No word or deed can sway her. She

will raise her hand against her children, and there will be great destruction and great suffering.

But her vengeance is not infinite. And when it is done, new life will burgeon again through all her

lands. Man will raise his head from the dust of destruction, and he will see about him the leaves

springing anew on the trees, and he will see about him the shy, wild creatures sniffing the sweet

air, and he will know that the world is reborn.

"But for this rebirth, man of the islands, there will be a price. Man has learned great

magic, but his magic has outgrown him and the master has become the servant. If he is to live on

when the Earth our Mother is done with her vengeance, then he must exchange his great magic

for a smaller magic and an older magic. He must relinquish the power and the strength by which

he has striven to achieve ascendancy over our Mother, and he must become again what he was so

long ago: a child of the Earth and bound to the earth and at one with the Earth. This, man may

hope for-but only if you, man of the islands and son of the sea, will take upon your shoulders the

final burden of the Mother's champion. "

The bright creature paused then and it smiled with infinite pity, for it had seen the great

grief that overcame the man of the islands, and the great fear that lurked unspoken in his heart. It

waited and it waited while the man wrung his hands in turmoil; but at last there came an answer.

The man of the islands raised his eyes, and he said: "What must I do?"

And the creature smiled again, for it knew, as the Earth our Mother knew, that this son of

the sea was worthy of her trust. It smiled, and it said:

"Go you to the farthest reaches of your land, to the great tundra that borders on the

icebound polar wastes. Build there a tower, a single tower without windows and without

embellishment, and with one single door. Build it of stone dug from the tundra, and build it so

strong that no hand might sunder it. When it is made, go alone to its door at evening, and enter in,

and close and bar the door at your back. Await the sun's setting, and with that setting will come

the vengeance of our Mother Earth. You will hear such things as no mortal creature has ever

heard; you will hear the crying and the pleading and the dying of your fellow men, and your heart

will be torn asunder with grief. But you must harden your heart, and you must turn your thoughts

from their suffering. On no account must you open the door, for if you do, you will sign the death

warrant of the human race. This will be your greatest test, and you must not shirk it. When all is

over, and our Mother's thirst is slaked, then and only then will you see me again. And I will come

to you, and I will tell you what you must do.'' Again it paused, and yet again it smiled. "No more

will I say to you now, son of the sea. But if you would see your people live and learn and prosper,

do not fail!"

And with these words the bright creature was no more to be seen.

The man of the islands did not sleep that night. And when morning broke and the sun

stood up in the sky, he rose from his bed and he went out into the world and he saw it with new

eyes. Now, the magic of man in those days was indeed of a greater order than the magic of our

times. His spells could chain the elements, stop the seas in their courses, bind the gales in their

raging. He could move upon and above and under the Earth, and in his traveling he was as swift

as thought. He was master of his fellow creatures, lord of the air, king of the water. He knew no

fear, and he knew no taboo. No door was closed to him.

But the glory and triumph of man was at an end. This he knew, this son of the sea, as he

looked into the eye of the sun and heard again the words of the bright creature, the messenger of

Mother Earth. Man's reign was done. But man might live, and learn, and prosper. And the key to

his living lay in the hands of that man of the islands, that son of the sea.

His heart was heavy and his shadow lay long before him as he turned his face to the great

tundra. But his steps did not falter, for he knew what he must do. He was a lion and he was a

wolf; he knew he would not fail. And so he came to the tundra and he found the place where he

must build. How he built and how he toiled we do not know; such ways as were his ways are lost

to us. But he built, and the tower without windows grew alone on the plain, and the tower had no

embellishments and but one door. And when the tower was done, he stood before the door at

evening and he opened the door and went in, and he barred the door behind him, so that he was

alone in the windowless dark. And as he stood in that bleak and lonely place the tears came hard

and fast for those he had left behind. And then the moment came when the sun set below the far

horizon.

What the man of the islands heard on that endless night, and what images his mind

conjured, we cannot know and dare not ask. We sing of his torment, and our harps and our pipes

cry the laments of his agony, but still we cannot know, and still we dare not ask. For on that night

the seas rose up against the land, and the land was torn asunder, and the fish of the sea perished

for want of water in which to swim and the birds of the air perished for want of air in which to fly

and the beasts of the land perished for want of earth on which to run. But the tower on the tundra

did not fall. And man, in his thousands and in his millions and in his tens of millions, cried out to

the screaming skies, but the skies paid no heed to man, and man perished with the fish and with

the birds and with the beasts. But still the tower on the tundra did not fall.

All through that long and dreadful night the man of the islands crouched within the tower

that he had built. And at last there came a moment when all sound and all motion ceased. A

strange and deathly quiet descended upon the world, and beyond the tower walls, where the man

could not see, the dark receded and the first gold arch of a new morning showed itself above the

far horizon. In the quiet the man wept, for he knew that all he had known and all he had loved

was no more. Mother Earth's vengeance was complete, and her new life was the death of his old

ways. And then in the depth of his sadness there came a light within the tower, and the man

looked up, and in the light he saw the bright creature, messenger of the Earth, standing before

him. And the creature smiled with pity on the man and spoke, as it had spoken before in his

dream. "Man of the islands, son of the sea, the day of your race is done and the world is clean

again. The time has come for you to open the door, which you barred as the sun set, and walk out

into the new world.

"Much has changed, my friend. The land you knew is no more. Summer and winter have

changed their places; that which was north is now south, and the great magic which man once

wielded is lost to him forever. But with that magic and those works has also gone the evil which

was man's creation and with which he scourged the Earth and brought about his own downfall. I

will speak to you one last time, you man, you survivor, you champion, and I will speak to you of

the burden which the Earth our Mother now sets upon your shoulders."

The man of the islands could not answer: his soul was too full for words to form upon his

tongue. The bright creature touched his brow so that he raised his eyes, and when he looked he

saw that the creature's countenance was filled with pity and with sadness and with joy all at once.

And the creature spoke one last time, and it said, "Man of the islands and son of the sea,

to this task does the Earth our Mother now bind you, and this task shall endure for all your days

and the days of your children and your children's children and all who follow you through the

march of time. The moment has come for you to walk forth into the world, and when you cross

the threshold you must bolt and bar the door behind you, and never again may you set your face

toward this tower. Return to your home among the islands, where you shall prosper under the sun

and the rain and the wind, and do not return to this place, no matter how great the temptation.

And when you wed and a son is born to you and that son grows to be a man after his father's

image, you shall tell him the tale of the Earth our Mother and her vengeance on the children who

betrayed her. And the burden which you have borne shall pass to him and to his heirs; they shall

guard the tower, and no human eye will gaze upon its door and no human tread shall sully the

earth around it.

"This tower will endure, man of the islands. It will stand as a symbol of the folly of your

kind, and as a warning to the multitudes yet unborn. If you would see your people live and grow,

then let these stones lie on in solitude, and let no hand be set upon them.

"Man of the islands, son of the sea, this is the burden that the Earth our Mother lays upon

you, and this is the trust she places in your heart. Do not fail her. "

And the man of the islands looked up once more, and where before the bright creature had

stood there was now an emptiness and a sighing and a firefly glow that faded into dark. And the

creature's words rang anew in his troubled mind as he stepped with slow steps to the door of the

tower he had built, and as his hands raised the bar and lifted the latch, his heart was heavy with

the dread of what he might see when he went forth from that place.

The door opened at his bidding, and his eyes gazed upon the light of day and the orb of the

sun that rode in the sky. And though the world about him was changed and changed, and though

the trees he had known were no more and the rivers he had known were no more and the seas he

had known were no more, yet the land was the land he knew and the land to which he had been

born. As he gazed and as he wondered at the land so strange and so familiar, there came to him

from out of the south a white bear of the snows, and treading in the bear's footsteps came the

gray wolf of the tundra, and behind the wolf came the hunting cat of the forest, and after the cat

came the innocent brown hare, and all the small things that ran and hopped and crawled upon the

land followed in their wake. And the man of the islands looked upon these creatures, and he knew

that the Earth our Mother had placed the heritage of their kind and his kind in his hands. And he

bowed his head and tears fell from his eyes, and in his heart he swore a silent oath that such a

great task and such a great trust should never be found wanting, and that mankind would not

forget. And so the man of the islands bolted and barred the door behind him, and he turned his

face from the tower and he set his steps across the plain to make a new home and a new place

from the ruins of the old. And the creatures of the Earth withdrew to their domains, to the snow

and to the tundra and to the forest, and the tower stood alone and alone.

What became of the man of the islands, the son of the sea, we do not know and cannot

say; for his was a time, a time and a time, before we who live now under the sun and the sky came

to count time. But the tower he built with his own hands endures still upon the empty plain, and in

our time we turn our faces from that place, as we must forever do.

You who sit at my side by the fire, you whose restless ghosts walk in the shadows of my

dreams, you children yet unborn, I speak to you as that bright creature spoke so long ago. If you

would see your people live and prosper, then let those ancient stones lie on in solitude. For this is

the burden that the Earth our Mother has set upon us all, and this is the trust she places in our

hearts. We must not fail her.

•CHAPTER•I•

Queen Imogen laid a hand lightly on her husband's arm and said: "Well? What do you truly think?"

Twenty-three years of marriage had taught Kalig, king of the Southern Isles, to recognize every

nuance of his consort's moods and reactions, and he detected the pleasure in her voice although she tried

to sound neutral. He smiled, and pulled his gaze from the finished painting to look affectionately at her.

"I think," he replied, "that we might tell Master Breym we're pleased with his work."

Imogen laughed and clasped her hands together, moving away from him and crossing the room

until she was close to the painting. The summer evening light slanted through the window behind her,

framing her with a gold aura in which dust motes danced lazily, and for a moment the years slipped away

from her and she looked young again.

"Not too near," Kalig advised. "Or you'll see nothing but the paint, and lose the image."

"With my eyes as they are, it'll be a blessing if I can see that!" But she stepped back nonetheless,

allowing him to take hold of her hand. "Seriously, my love. Are you pleased?"

"I'm delighted; and I'll make sure Master Breym is very well rewarded."

Imogen nodded her agreement. "The first portrait of us all as a family," she said with satisfaction.

"And the first in all the Southern Isles to be painted in this new style."

Kalig didn't know which pleased him more: the painting itself, or his wife's obvious delight in it.

His decision to employ the talented but unorthodox Breym to capture the likenesses of the royal family of

Carn Caille had been largely at Imogen's urging; he himself had had doubts, though he admitted willingly

that his knowledge of art was to say the least limited. But his wife's instinct had been true. The likenesses

were superb; so lifelike that it was easy to imagine them moving and stretching their arms and stepping

down from the linen-covered board into the room. And the pigments Breym had used were restful on the

eye; colors softer yet somehow richer than the harsh tints favored by most artists, lending the portrait a

subtlety he'd never encountered in a painting before.

The portrait depicted himself, tall, his auburn hair graying now, dressed in the court robes he

wore for the most formal ceremonial occasions, standing in the great hall of Carn Caille with sunlight

slanting in at the window much as it slanted in this window now. At his side, Imogen was a graceful figure

in a gray-and-white gown, dignity and serenity personified; while on low stools before their parents sat

their son and heir, Prince Kirra, and their daughter, Princess Anghara. Breym had captured

twenty-one-year-old Kirra's innate mischief in the tilt of his head and the faintly insouciant way in which

his hands rested on his thighs, while Anghara, by complete contrast, sat with her face half shadowed by

the curtain of her tawny hair, her violet eyes cast down in a look of troubled contemplation. Kalig felt a

swell of pride in the portrait. In years to come, when he had been succeeded by a dozen generations, his

descendants would still gaze on this picture, and they would take the same pleasure and pride in their

ancestors as he took now.

Reluctantly, Imogen tore her gaze from the painting. "We should send for the children," she said.

"And Imyssa-I promised her she would see the portrait as soon as it was ready."

Kalig laughed. "Just so long as she doesn't start looking for omens in the pigment."

"Oh, let her. At her age we can afford to indulge her a little." She stepped forward again, drawing

him with her, and peered at the board, screwing up her shortsighted eyes to see better. "Of course,

there's now one family member missing. Once Anghara weds, we'll have to think about another

commission for Master Breym, to include Fenran. If we'd known a year ago, when the portrait was

begun-""Then we'd have waited, and by the time it was finished Kirra would have found a wife. Then

another wait, until there were grandchildren to be added to the picture." Kalig squeezed her hand. "If we

left it much longer, Master Breym would have had to include our death-masks!"

Imogen frowned to show him that his joke was in bad taste, but otherwise let it pass.

"Nonetheless, it might be as well to retain him for a while," she insisted. "The marriage is only a month

away, and-"

He silenced her with another squeeze, then lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

"Whatever you wish, my love, we shall do. I'm well aware that we're notoriously short of works of art at

Carn Caille, and I know how eager you are to bring a little culture into our barbarous southern lives! For

as long as my coffers can afford it, you shall have whatever you want!"

The gentle ribbing was a reminder of the days, long ago, when Imogen had come from her home

in the eastern continent to become Kalig's queen. Like most marriages in the aristocracy, it had been a

pragmatically arranged match, designed to unite a wealthy merchant principality with the military power of

the Southern Isles. The pragmatism had worked, giving much-needed security to the east and equally

desirable prosperity to the fierce but impoverished south: and, against the odds, the unlikely pairing of the

unsophisticated heir to Carn Caille, whose world revolved around hunting, riding and fighting, and the

educated nobleman's daughter accustomed to artistic pursuits and the elegant life of a city had, after an

uncertain start, proved to be a love-match. Kalig and Imogen had learned from each other, his exuberant

love of life trading with her gentility; and now, many years on, the greatest compliment they could pay

their daughter was to hope that her marriage would prove as happy as their own.

Imogen's family, they knew, disapproved of the outlandish notion that Anghara should be allowed

a husband of her own choosing. Kalig had laughed their disapproval off with the comment that no power

on, under or above the earth could ever persuade the princess to acquiesce to an arranged match, while

Imogen, more diplomatically, had assured her relations that the Northman Fenran came of an indisputably

noble family, had proved himself in the service of Carn Caille and would make an eminently suitable

consort for their daughter. Thanks to her tact, doubts had been largely assuaged; and there would be a

good contingent of eastern representatives at the nuptial celebrations in the autumn.

It was, Imogen reflected, a good deal easier to settle her daughter's future than it would be when

it came to Kirra's marriage. As he was Kalig's heir-though not, she prayed daily, for a good many years

yet-a pragmatic alliance would be necessary to safeguard the Southern Isles' future prosperity, and she

had spent many an intriguing hour with Imyssa. who had been nurse to both children since their birth,

listing the names and qualities of highborn girls from all parts of the great sprawl of the world who might

be considered as a worthy future queen. Kirra looked on his mother's deliberations with huge

amusement, which for Imogen was a relief; the young prince was twenty times more tractable than his

sister and would accept his parents' choice happily so long as the girl in question had a pretty face and an

equable temper. Sometimes Imogen awoke in the night sweating at the thought of the troubles that would

have been heaped upon her had Kirra's and Anghara's personalities been reversed.

Kalig's voice broke in on her reverie. "My love, much as I admire Breym's work, we'll find

ourselves rooted to the floor if we stand her gazing on it for much longer. The light's fading, I'm hungry-"

"You're always hungry!"

"-and before I retire tonight, I must speak to Fenran about the hunting rights in the western forest.

There's been some dispute among the small landowners over..." Kalig's voice trailed off as Imogen laid a

hand on his arm and patted it.

"Fenran is out riding with Anghara, and I doubt if we'll see hide or hair of them before dusk." she

said placidly. "There's plenty of time to settle hunting rights; the season isn't under way yet. Tonight, my

dear husband and lord, you and I will dine privately in our chambers, and I'll sing your favorite songs for

you, and we shall retire early." Mischief and affection glinted in her eyes. "Business can wait until

tomorrow."

For a few moments Kalig gazed at her; then his face broke into a slow, broad smile. He said

nothing, but lifted her fingers to his lips again and kissed them. Then, with a last satisfied glance at the

portrait, he let her lead him from the room. * * *

As Kalig and Imogen were making their unhurried way to their private quarters, Princess Anghara

Kaligsdaughter was reining in her iron-gray mare at the top of the escarpment that marked the

southernmost edge of the forestlands. From this vantage point the view was breathtaking. To the north

the trees began to take hold, gradually at first, then growing denser, until they merged into a sea of

unbroken blue-green; while southward from the escarpment's feet the land was empty and flat to a hazy

horizon, broken only by the contours of rock outcrops and the occasional patch of stunted and scrubby

vegetation. In the right weather and with the light at a certain angle it was just possible to glimpse the

edge of the vast southern tundra that ended only when it met the implacable glaciers of the polar region.

Today, that distant pale shimmer wasn't visible; the sun was too low (though during the short summers it

barely dipped beyond the curve of the world), and its mellow orange-gold light made all distances

nothing more than an indistinct blur.

The barren plains, and the tundra and glaciers beyond, were part of Kalig's kingdom, but no one

had ever ventured far into those southern wastes. Indeed, the landmark that stood at the limit of human

exploration was just visible from the scarp as a long shadow fingering the landscape almost directly

ahead; a sharp and isolated rectangle of darkness among the smaller and .less distinct silhouettes of the

scrub. A single stone tower, its door barred to any trespass by an edict that had been old when Kalig's

nine-times-great-grandfather had fought his way to rulership in Carn Caille. The edict was harshly simple:

the tower must never, never be opened, or even approached. The reasons for that irrevocable law were

hidden in the uncountable past, surviving only in the cryptic forms of ballad and folklore: only the tower

itself remained, solitary, threatening, obscure.

Anghara shivered as a light wind sprang up and chilled her arms. Such an old place, its origins

long forgotten. Yet the ruling house of Carn Caille had lived for centuries with its unspoken threat, and

might do so for centuries yet to come.

"A silver penny for your daydreams." The voice at her side, warm, quizzical and faintly teasing,

brought the princess out of her reverie. She turned and saw that Fenran had ridden up the escarpment to

join her, reining in his horse and sitting easily back in the saddle while his gray eyes lazily assessed her.

"You gave up the hunt too soon," he said. "I told you-patience has its virtues!" And he gestured

before him, drawing her attention to the small, furry corpse that dangled over his saddle pommel.

She laughed. "A hare? Fenran, your prowess is unlimited! A whole hare-I'm in awe!"

"It's more than you managed, woman!" Fenran made a mock swipe at her with his free hand,

then patted the dead creature. "Imyssa will appreciate it, even if you don't. And when she's jugged it, and

added her herbs to it, and muttered her incantations over the cooking pot, I'll see that you don't get the

smallest taste of the result!" He grinned at her. "Seriously, though..."

"Seriously?"

"It's getting late. Any creature with half a grain of sense is in its lair or burrow by now, and we

should be going. If the shadows grow much longer, Imyssa and your mother will start to fret."

Anghara sighed. She was reluctant to abandon the long, bright day for the walls of Carn Caille,

and up here on the escarpment, the old feeling had her in its grip again, the fearful, exciting, insatiable

feeling that had assailed her so often since she was a very little girt and had looked out across the

southern plains for the first time. The imperative feeling of wanting to know... Fenran saw something of it

reflected in her face, and his own expression tightened into a frown. He followed her gaze to the faraway

shadow on the plain and said: "You're not still thinking of the Tower of Regrets?"

Angry with herself for being too transparent, Anghara shrugged. "There's no harm to be had in

thinking."

"Oh, but there is. Or there could be, if the thoughts get too strong a grip." He leaned over and

squeezed her arm. "Forget about it, my little she-wolf; it's safer. The horses are tired, and your future lord

and master is hungry. Let it rest, and let's go home."

It wasn't in Anghara's nature to allow herself to be maneuvered, or to obey anyone-her father

included-for no better reason than a sense of duty. But in the time they had known each other Fenran had

learned his own ways of handling her mercurial character and stubborn temper, and something in his

voice both mollified and persuaded her. She smiled faintly at him and, with only a small show of

reluctance, urged her mare forward to follow him down the slope.

* * *

"Come on now, my poppet-just look at the hour! Come you back to your bed, and get your sleep!"

Anghara turned from her window to where Imyssa hovered like a plump, mothering hen. The old

nurse had been fussing with the bedcovers, smoothing the underblanket, twitching at the

goose-down-filled quilt until it was rigidly straight, plumping the pillows; now, with no more to occupy her

hands, she bobbed about like a small boat in the girl's wake.

Anghara sighed irritably. "I can't sleep, Imyssa; I'm not tired, and I don't want to go back to bed.

Just go away, and leave me be."

Imyssa regarded her, blue eyes sharp in their sheaf of wrinkles. "You're fretting again, and don't

think I don't know why."

"You don't," Anghara retorted. "Witch you may be, but you can't read my thoughts; and they're

none of your concern."

"Oho, they're not! D'you think I don't know you just as well as I know the lines on my own

hands, when I delivered you from your mother's body and nursed you from infant to grown woman?"

Imyssa folded her arms. "I don't need my Craft to tell me what's amiss with you!" She took a pace nearer

to the princess. "I know where you've been, and I know what you've seen today; and I say to you, put it

out of your mind and away, in the dark places where it belongs!"

The trouble with Imyssa, Anghara thought, was that her wise-woman's skills did allow her to

read minds, or at least inclinations, too well. She hunched her shoulders moodily and turned back to the

window, gazing out at the dark jumble of Carn Caille. There was no moon tonight, but the sky reflected

the sullen fires of the sun a bare few degrees below the horizon, and the courtyard and the ancient keep

that marked the stronghold's boundaries were clearly visible. Beyond Carn Caille, over the turf-grown

hills and past the crowding trees of the forest, were the plain and the tundra and the Tower of Regrets....

Imyssa's voice broke in on her again. "Forget about that place, my own one. It's not a burden

you'll ever have to bear; it's for your brother to take up when the Earth our Mother finally gathers the

king to Her embrace; though may She grant it's many years yet." Now there was more than a hint of

reprimand in her voice, and something that Anghara thought smacked of dread. "Take heed of my

advice, for I know," Imyssa added darkly.

Anger rose afresh in Anghara. "What do you know?" she demanded. "Tell me that, Imyssa-just

what do you know of the Tower of Regrets?"

Imyssa pursed her mouth. "Nothing, save for the law that no one has ever broken-and I don't

question it. Better creatures than you have obeyed that law since time began, and if you want to be wise

you'll follow their example!"

Her voice was suddenly so emphatic that Anghara was taken aback. Only a very few times in her

life had she heard Imyssa speak so fiercely; the old woman's nature was too mild and too fond for such

an ugly edge, and its manifestation now was unnerving. Guilt came hard on the heels of chagrin; she

hadn't intended to upset Imyssa or take out her ill mood on her, and suddenly she regretted her outburst.

The nurse saw the fiery light of defiance slowly fade from Anghara's gaze and, anxious not to

dwell on an unpleasant subject, she turned to a low table near the bed. On the table stood a timepiece: an

ornate and complex device of delicate, blown-glass bulbs and tubes in a silver filigree frame. Colored

liquid flowed through the glass in an intricate pattern, filtering slowly into the bulbs and filling them, one for

each hour that passed. When twelve hours had passed, the structure could be rotated within its frame

and the entire process would begin again. The timepiece had been a birthday gift to Anghara from Queen

Imogen's family, who set great store by such inventions, but the princess privately shared Kalig's view

that it was a frippery plaything and the hour could be told as easily, and a good deal more conveniently,

by looking at the sky.

Imyssa now tapped the filigree frame with a light fingernail, and the timepiece gave off a faint,

sweet, ringing sound. "Look at the hour!" she said, thankful for a new topic to divert them both. "There's

a feast tomorrow to celebrate the start of the new hunting season, and you're to play for the king's guests.

What sort of state will you be in if you don't get your sleep?"

"I'll be well enough." But Anghara's resentment was fading, and there was a tinge of affection in

her voice. "Please, dear Imyssa-leave me be now."

The old woman frowned, "Well... then I'll mix you a draught to settle you." She eyed her charge.

"Something to put paid to those stormy thoughts in your head."

It would be easier to appease her, and perhaps even the artificial peace of a draught would be

better than the torment of unfulfillment. Anghara nodded. "Very well."

Satisfied, Imyssa bustled through the low door that separated Anghara's bedchamber from her

own. As she prepared a sleeping-potion from the collection of herbs which she kept in a small satchel

and carried everywhere with her, her voice, affectionately chiding, carried through the open doorway,

interspersed with the rhythmic thump of a small mortar and pestle.

"You should by now be well able to do this for yourself, my poppet, instead of relying on old

Imyssa to do it for you! The bones and spirits of my grand-dams know I've tried to teach you my skills

since you could barely toddle, and they know, too, that you've got the talent in you as surely as any wise

woman ever born! But no; you've never knuckled down to your studies like a dutiful girl. Too busy riding

and hunting and running with the boys... I don't wonder your poor mother the queen nigh on despairs of

you sometimes!" There was the sound of liquid being poured, then a silver spoon rattled briskly and

noisily in a pottery cup.

"Mother doesn't despair of me," Anghara contradicted. "She accepts me as I am, Imyssa, dear.

Besides, what use will witch-skills be to me when I'm wed?"

"What use?" Imyssa's voice grew louder and she appeared in the doorway with the potion in her

hand. "Whatever use you can think of, and I could name you a hundred without pausing for breath! You

can scry, you can foretell the weather, you have a way with horses and dogs that's the envy of every man

in Carn Caille; and don't think I haven't seen you using those little tricks I taught you to bend someone to

your will without them any the wiser! Then there's-"

"Yes, yes," Anghara interrupted hastily, aware that Imyssa could and would fulfill her promise to

name a hundred different possibilities if she weren't forestalled. "But I won't need them." She smiled. "It

doesn't take magic to persuade Fenran to my way of thinking.''

The nurse snorted derisively but, aware that Anghara needed sleep more than she needed a

debate, made no further comment, only held out the cup. "There, now. Drink, and get you to bed." And

under her breath she muttered, "Won't need them, indeed!"

Anghara drank the draught, which was in honey-sweetened cider and tasted soothingly good,

and made no protest as Imyssa pulled the tapestried curtain over her window and turned down the wick

of her lamp until it was a barely glowing pinpoint. She let the old nurse chivy her into bed, and as the

covers were pulled up over her shoulders Imyssa said, more gently, "Don't you fret, my little one. You've

happier things to think on than old legends. Good night, poppet."

Imyssa smelled pleasantly of fresh leaves and honey and the pressed essence of downland

flowers, scents which carried memories of childhood; and Anghara reached out and squeezed her

wrinkled hand before the lamp was extinguished and the room sank into the shimmering half darkness of

a southern summer night.

•CHAPTER•II•

To mark his pleasure at their impending marriage, King Kalig had granted Fenran and Anghara the rare

honor of leading the dancing at the feast which heralded the start of the hunting season. Watching them

walk out on the floor together, to the applause of the assembled company, Kalig sat back in his chair and

smiled, proud of the picture they presented and well content with life at large.

Formal dancing was another of the innovations which Queen Imogen had brought to the

untutored court at Carn Caille. It numbered among her favorite recreations, and when she married she

had been determined not to be deprived of it. Persuading Kalig and his nobles to refine the chaotically

rumbustious cavorting that sometimes accompanied the court's more drunken revels had taken a great

deal of patience and tenacity; but finally a happy compromise was reached by introducing some set steps

and an element of grace into the best of the old country dances. The "new entertainment" became

surprisingly popular, and Imogen had discovered an unexpected ally in Fenran, who had taken great

pleasure in music and dancing in his own father's household.

Watching the couple as they stepped and spun down the length of the great, raftered hall, Imogen

thought how splendid a pairing they made. Anghara scorned the convention of braiding her hair and wore

it as it suited her best: loosed and flowing over her shoulders like a tawny waterfall, setting off the

uncomplicated lines of her tightly cut green gown. She was as tall and slender and graceful as a young

willow; a credit to her royal house. And Fenran made the perfect complement, the picture of elegant

sobriety in gray and black, yet with a wit in his eyes and a strong, self-willed, perhaps even faintly

reckless look to his tanned face that offset his apparent austerity. The marriage between these two

promised to be stronger even than Imogen had initially hoped, for beneath the hot fires of passion that

burned in them now was a firm core of compatibility and like thinking which would keep the fires burning

when old age turned passion into no more than a fond memory.

Strange, Imogen thought, how such an insignificant event as Fenran's arrival at Carn Caille a little

over two years ago could have flowered, against all likelihood, into something that would change all their

lives. Although these days he was reluctant to speak of his earlier life, Fenran had been born the

second-or third, Imogen couldn't remember which-son of Earl Bray of the Redoubt, a large island right

across the world in the far north. A family quarrel had resulted in Fenran's leaving his homeland at the age

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

TOYOURPEOPLEYOUAREDEADAngharaslowlyraisedherhead.Thebrightemissarywaswatchingher,butthesparkofpityinitseyeshaddimmed."Theywillmournyourfamily,andtheywillmournyou,eventhoughyoustilllive.YoumusttakeonanewidentityandleavetheSouthernIsles.CairnCailleisbarredtoyou."Anghara'sfacewasgreyasoldparchment.Herg...

展开>> 收起<<

Louise Cooper - Indigo 1 - Nemesis.pdf

共113页,预览23页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Louise Cooper - Indigo 1 - Nemesis

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: