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.With half hisbeing he was apprehensive, for all he had ever known throughout innumerableeons was the task allotted him; with the balance he yearned for it.KarthPage 52ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlgone, Yorbeth gone, Jorkas gone-would there shortly also be an end for Tuprid,and Caschalanva, for Quorril and Lry and Laprivan of the Yellow Eyes?On impulse, when he came to the grove of ash-trees at Segrimond which was oneof the places where such things were possible, he constrained Wolpec to enterthe customary candle, but when he tried to smoke a piece of glass over itsflame and read the three truths therefrom, the glass cracked.With resignationhe concluded that this was not for him to learn, and went his way.In Kanish-Kulya the wall that had once divided Kanishmen from Kulyamen, deckedalong its top with skulls, had crumbled until it was barely more than a bankenshrouded with ivy and convolvulus, and roads pierced it along which went thegay carts of pedlars and the tall horses of adventure-seeking knights.Yet inthe minds of certain men it was as though the old barrier still stood."Not only," groused a certain Kanish merchant to the traveler, "does my eldestdaughter decline to accept her proper fate, and be sacrificed in traditionalmanner to Fegrim! She adds insult in injury, and proposes to wed a Kulyanbrave!"The traveler, who knew much about the elemental Fegrim, including hisindifference to sacrifices, held his peace."This I pledge on my life!" the merchant fumed."If my daughter carries on theway she's going, I shall never want to speak to her again-nor shall I let herin my house!""As you wish, so be it," said the traveler.From that moment forward themerchant uttered never a word;dumb, he stood by to watch the fine procession in which the girl went to claimher bridegroom, and before she returned home apoplexy killed him, so that thehouse was no longer his.But nothing in this was remarkable.Greed, hate, jealousy-these werecommonplace, and it was not to be questioned that they should defeatthemselves.Onward again, therefore, and now at last to Erminvale.IIIIn that land of pleasant rolling downs and copses of birch and maple, therestood the village Wantwich, of small white farms parted by tidy hedgerows,radiating out from a central green where of a summer evening the young peoplewould gather with a fiddler and a harpist to dance arid court in brightcostumes of pheasant-feathers and fantastical jingling bangles.At one side ofthis green was a pond of sweet water which the traveler in black had consignedto the charge of the being Horimos, for whom he had conceived a peculiaraffection on discovering that this one alone among all known elementals wastoo lazy to be harmful, desiring chiefly to be left in peace.While othersolder than themselves danced, the village children would splash in the pondwith delighted cries, or paint their bare bodies with streaks of red and blueclay from the bank, proudly writing each other's names if they knew how.Inwinter,moreover, it served for them to skate on, and well wrapped in the whole hidesof goats they slid across it with double wooden runners strapped to theirfeet.Good things were plentiful in Erminvale: creamy milk, fat cheeses, turnips sofirm and sweet you might carve a slice raw and eat it with a dressing of salt,berries and nuts of every description, and bearded barley for nutritiousbread.Also they brewed fine beer, and on a festival day they would bear ontothe green three vast barrels from which anyone, resident or traveler, mightswig at will, the first mug always being poured of course to Horimos.Contentwith that small token of esteem, he slumbered at the bottom of his mud.All this was what the girl named Viola had known since a child, and fromreports she had heard through visitors she felt well satisfied that she'd beenborn in Wantwich.Where else offered you a better life?Great cities were crowded and full of smoke and stinks; moreover, they hadPage 53ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlmore demanding patrons than Horimos, like Hnua-Threl of Barbizond black withthe dried blood of those who had dueled by his altar, or that blind Lady Luckwho smiled randomly on the folk of Teq and might tomorrow turn her back forgood on the one she had favored yesterday.She had heard about Teq from a finely-clad rider who had come, a while ago, ona tall roan stallion, twirling long fair mustachios and spilling gold from hisscrip like sand.He had arrived on the first fine evening of spring, when Viola and herbetrothed man Leluak joined all the other young people in a giddy whirlingdance around the green, and because it behooved one to be courteous to astranger-even a stranger who complained about the narrowness of his room attheir only inn, and passed unflattering remarks concerning Wantwich beer asagainst the wines of home-and also, she admitted to herself, because all theother girls would be envious, she had accepted his request to join him indemonstrating some newly-fashionable dances from Teq.Instruction took amoment only; she was a skillful dancer, light on slim legs that not even thebleaching of winter had worn to paleness from last summer's tan.Afterdancing, they talked.She learned that his name was Achoreus, and that he served one of the greatlords of Teq.She learned further that he thought her beautiful, which shegranted, for everyone had always said the same: she had long sleek tresses,large eyes that shifted color ceaselessly like opals, and skin of thesmoothness of satin.He declared next that such loveliness was wasted in a backwater hamlet andshould be displayed to the nobility and gentry of a great city-meaning Teq.She thanked him for his compliments but explained she was already spoken for.Thereupon he proved that for all his elegant airs he lacked common civility,and tried to fondle her inside her bodice, at which she marched away.Had he acted decently, inviting her to stroll in the woods with him and find atemporary bed of moss, she would naturally have agreed.It was the custom ofWantwich to receive all strangers as one would one's friends.But as thingswere-so she told Leluak when bidding him good night-he seemed to expect thatthe mere sight of him would make her forget the boy she had grown up with allher life.What foolishness!Accordingly, all plans for her marriage went ahead in the ancient manner,until at sunset the day before the ceremony her father, her mother, her twosisters and her aunt equipped her in the prescribed fashion for a night shehad to pass alone, during which she must visit each in turn of five high peaksenclosingErminvale and there plant five seeds: an apple, a sloe, a cob, an acorn and agrain of barley.With a leather wallet containing bread and cheese, a flask of water, and atorch of sweet-scented juniper, and followed by the cries of well-wishers, sheset forth into the gathering dusk.The tramp was a long one, and tricky in the dark, but she had wandered throughErminvale since she wasold enough to be allowed out of sight of her mother, and though she mustclamber up rocky slopes and thread her way through thickets where night-birdshooted and chattered, she gained each peak in turn with no worse injury thanthorn-scratches on her calves.As dawn began to pale the sky, she set in placethe final seed, the barley-grain, and watered it from her body to give it ahealthy start in life [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]