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共有0篇贴子 页次1/02009-08-09 19:56:531 简介:古国三部曲(英文)-Garth Nix TXT科幻小说
V1- ripped from official ebook - kud
Prologue
It was little more than three miles
from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that
was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on
the other side of the Wall in Ancelstierre, and not
a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded sunset,
and a steady rain had just begun to fall, coming
faster than the tents could be raised.
The midwife shrugged her cloak higher up
against her neck and bent over the woman again,
raindrops spilling from her nose onto the
upturned face below. The midwife’s breath blew
out in a cloud of white, but there was no answering
billow of air from her patient.
The midwife sighed and slowly straightened
up, that single movement telling the watchers
2
everything they needed to know. The woman
who had staggered into their forest camp was
dead, only holding on to life long enough to pass
it on to the baby at her side. But even as the midwife
picked up the pathetically small form beside
the dead woman, it shuddered within its wrappings,
and was still.
“The child, too?” asked one of the watchers, a
man who wore the mark of the Charter freshdrawn
in wood ash upon his brow. “Then there
shall be no need for baptism.”
His hand went up to brush the mark from his
forehead, then suddenly stopped, as a pale white
hand gripped his and forced it down in a single,
swift motion.
“Peace!” said a calm voice. “I wish you no
harm.”
The white hand released its grip and the
speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The
others watched him without welcome, and
the hands that had half sketched Charter marks,
or gone to bowstrings and hilts, did not relax.
The man strode towards the bodies and looked
upon them. Then he turned to face the watchers,
pushing his hood back to reveal the face of someone
who had taken paths far from sunlight, for
3
his skin was a deathly white.
“I am called Abhorsen,” he said, and his words
sent ripples through the people about him, as if
he had cast a large and weighty stone into a pool
of stagnant water. “And there will be a baptism
tonight.”
The Charter Mage looked down on the bundle
in the midwife’s hands, and said: “The child is
dead, Abhorsen. We are travelers, our life lived
under the sky, and it is often harsh. We know
death, lord.”
“Not as I do,” replied Abhorsen, smiling so his
paper-white face crinkled at the corners and
drew back from his equally white teeth. “And I
say the child is not yet dead.”
The man tried to meet Abhorsen’s gaze, but faltered
and looked away at his fellows. None
moved, or made any sign, till a woman said, “So.
It is easily done. Sign the child, Arrenil. We will
make a new camp at Leovi’s Ford. Join us when
you are finished here.”
The Charter Mage inclined his head in assent,
and the others drifted away to pack up their halfmade
camp, slow with the reluctance of having
to move, but filled with a greater reluctance to
remain near Abhorsen, for his name was one of
4
secrets, and unspoken fears.
When the midwife went to lay the child down
and leave, Abhorsen spoke: “Wait. You will be
needed.”
The midwife looked down on the baby, and
saw that it was a girl child and, save for its stillness,
could be merely sleeping. She had heard of
Abhorsen, and if the girl could live . . . warily she
picked up the child again and held her out to the
Charter Mage.
“If the Charter does not—” began the man,
but Abhorsen held up a pallid hand and interrupted.
“Let us see what the Charter wills.”
The man looked at the child again and sighed.
Then he took a small bottle from his pouch and
held it aloft, crying out a chant that was the大小:611 KB 今日下载:521 次 发布用户:admin共有0篇贴子 页次1/0最近更新推荐[外语教材]
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