Читать книгу Hero Risen - Andy Livingstone - Страница 6

He paused before the door, running his fingertips slowly down the wood smoothed as much by years as by the plane, letting them fall into the curving groove of the traditional mark of luck in its centre. He was prolonging the moment.

The sounds of early evening were all around him, stark in the deserted village, but he heard none. The smells of dusk drifted over him, but he noticed none. Still he stayed his hand from pushing the door.

It was a strange mix of feelings that coursed through him on the final night of a story:

Nerves – that he might not do justice to those whose tale he told.

Pleasure – that the crowd waited on his words: the result of his efforts the previous two nights.

Sadness – that tonight this telling would come to an end.

And eagerness – a quickening of heart and breath. He would be drawn into the telling, the exhilaration confining his awareness within each moment and shortening time.

It was always so.

It was, these days, what he lived for. Keeping the past alive. Ensuring the deeds he had witnessed did not drift and fade with the shifting winds of memory. Helping the lessons of before to be learnt afresh, the mistakes understood, the heroics and sacrifices appreciated.

He pushed on the door, letting the remaining light spill within and hush the murmur of the throng. He moved inside, his adjusting eyes revealing rings of faces turned his way. Close by, one caught his eye. A boy who had decried the stories outside the hall on the first night; the challenging cynicism in his voice now replaced by eager anticipation in his eyes.

He stepped forward.

He was a storyteller. And he had a story to tell.