Mists of Everness - Hardcover

Wright, John C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765313332 ISBN 13: 9780765313331

Verlag: Tor Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

Young Galen Waylock is the last watchman of the dream gate beyond which the ancient evils wait, hungry for the human world. For a thousand years, Galen's family stood guard, scorned by a world that dismissed the danger as myth. Now, the minions of Darkness have stirred in the deep and the long watch is over. An army of mythic monsters has invaded our world, and Galen and his friends have begun to fight them. This volume continues a towering fantasy that will inspire readers everywhere.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John C. Wright, a former lawyer, lives in fairytale-like happiness with his beloved wife and fellow author L. Jagi Lamplighter, and their three children, Orville, Wilbur and Juss Wright.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

 

1

The Amaranthine Fields

I

Once there lived a shining field where amaranth and moly grew. Bright with color, the amaranth blossoms swayed, and tall grasses bowed when soft winds blew.

The field was in a valley surrounded on all sides by Iron Mountains, and no creature could come over them without wings. Birds and butterflies of all types lived in the shining field and played and sang and flew among the trees and flowers, but no cat, no fox, not even a squirrel.

Only two creatures in that valley lacked wings. One was Meadow Mouse. (But even Meadow Mouse and all his kin claimed descent from a mother mouse who’d escaped by a trick from the dreary house of Horned Owl before suppertime. She had been carried on her wedding night in Horned Owl’s claws over the Iron Mountains, and Meadow Mouse’s people have an interesting tale to tell over the episode.)

The other was the Sad Princess, who lived in a Tower in the center of the valley, atop tall Willow Hill, in the middle of a ring of Weeping Willow trees.

The Tower was made of sunset colors, stones of scarlet and pink and cerise, with many wide windows of deep purple glass. It was a Tower without doors, for every creature in the valley flew (except, of course, for Meadow Mouse; but he was so clever at getting into places that the lack of doors did not hinder him).

Some of the folk in the valley told the tale that the Tower had once been part of a castle in the clouds, but which had foundered against the peaks of the Iron Mountains one day when it flew too low and sank down to rest on the valley floor. Whether this was true or not, only the Willows knew, for their memories stretch back far indeed, but, like most trees, they were secretive and would not say.

One bright spring day Meadow Mouse walked up to Horned Owl’s house and knocked on the door with his walking stick.

“Hello, Owl?” he called out. “I’ve come on a quest for the Sad Princess. It seems she has lost her name. Can you help me find it for her? For you are known to be wise.”

“Who?” came a voice from the house.

“It is I, Meadow Mouse.”

The door swung open, but it was only Mrs. Owl. “I’m sorry, but my husband is away at Parliament.”

“Parliament?”

“It’s something owls do when they get together, dear; it’s boring at best, but it’s not as bad as what crows do. But please come in; I was sitting down to tea.”

“Thank you, no,” said Meadow Mouse, suppressing a shiver. His tribe and the Owl family had made peace long ago, when the Sad Princess first came (although she had a different name back then), but the Mouses still did not like to watch the Owls dine. It brought back unpleasant memories.

Mrs. Owl blinked behind her huge, round spectacles (her eyes were round and yellow and alarmingly large), and she said, “I’m sorry. But I was going to nibble on some cheese and biscuits with my tea, and I’d hoped to have some company.”

“Cheese?” Meadow Mouse’s whiskers stood up at the merest mention. “But I thought Owls did not eat such stuffs.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Owl, “we keep it for our guests. Now that the war is over, sometimes mice stop by; and I know how particular you vegetarians are about what you eat.” And so she bustled into the kitchen, and Meadow Mouse followed after, trying not to look timid.

But the Owl’s house was not so dark nor so dismal after all, but nice and tidy. Nor were there bones of mice coughed up in balls lying across the floor, as the nursery stories Meadow Mouse heard in his youth had said. Meadow Mouse reflected that Owl had married, after all, and Mrs. Owl perhaps had reformed his untidy bachelor habits.

And when Meadow Mouse was settled down with his tea and biscuits, and they had talked about the weather (an easy topic to discuss in Shining Valley, where it was always spring), Mrs. Owl asked, “What’s all this about the Princess, then?”

“Shall I tell you the story?” asked Meadow Mouse.

“Please do! I love stories!”

“As who in this valley does not, my dear Mrs. Owl?”

“My favorite is the one Gray Goose tells, about fields of endless ice far to the south, which her people used to visit once a year, back in the days when Winter still invaded this valley each December. You always knew his terrible white armies were on the march, she said, because they hung their battle pennants on every branch and overhang. But, dear me! Tell me your story, do. We hear so few good ones from mice. Er—I mean. Well, at least my husband is in the one story you always tell,” her voice trailed off lamely. Mrs. Owl hoped she had not hurt Meadow Mouse’s feelings. She knew his people did not have many stories at all, since they could never fly out of the valley to the outside world. But Meadow Mouse pretended not to have noticed but began his tale without further ado.

II

“The Weeping Willows were weeping again,” Meadow Mouse began. “And I heard Bright Starling singing to them. ‘Why do you weep?’ she sang. ‘We live here in a vale of Amaranth, flowers unfading forever, where winter never comes, and those who breathe of their perfume know ageless youth and beauty evermore. Why, therefore, do you weep?’

“And I heard the wind walk among the willows and carry this message back to Bright Starling: ‘We weep because the Sad Princess has forgotten how to fly.’

“‘And how has she forgotten this?’ I heard Bright Starling ask. ‘The secret is so clear. Every fledgling learns it when they leave the nest; joy is the answer. Joy and freedom carry us aloft.’

“The willows let the wind carry this message back: ‘Her joy is gone because she has forgotten her name.’”

III

Mrs. Owl clucked her tongue. “My, doesn’t that Starling have a way with words!”

“The point is,” said Meadow Mouse (perhaps a touch impatiently), “What are we to do about it?”

“Do?” Mrs. Owl blinked. “One doesn’t ‘do’ anything about melancholy; it’s like the weather. It comes and goes.”

“But my dear Mrs. Owl,” and now a touch of sharpness entered Meadow Mouse’s voice, “this goes deeper than melancholy, deeper than sorrow. This goes right to the root! She has forgotten her name, and we must find it for her.”

“Exactly so!” came a new voice, deep and low, and Meadow Mouse jumped, spilling his tea all over his brown coat.

It was Horned Owl himself. Despite his portly girth, he always moved quite silently. (And perhaps he had come into the kitchen from behind just to make poor Meadow Mouse jump. Not that Owl was particularly malicious, but Meadow Mouse had been speaking sharply to his wife, after all.)

“How was Parliament, dear?” asked Mrs. Owl.

“Stuff and nonsense,” rumbled Horned Owl in his deep voice, waddling over to the teapot. He turned his head entirely around and spoke back over his shoulder. “We were debating (ah! Hello, Mouse) the same issue Mouse here spoke of, but with all the motions and points of order, writs and resolutions, it will take us all month and well into the next to decide what our good Mouse here has already pointed out so clearly. We must find the Sad Princess her name...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765313332
• ISBN 13: 9780765313331
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland