[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
long pause.
What for?
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Silence apparently did not notice the pause or the extreme softness of Dulse s voice. Milk, cheese,
roast kid, company, he said.
Have you ever kept goats? Dulse asked, in the same soft, polite voice.
Silence shook his head.
He was in fact a town boy, born in Gont Port. He had said nothing about himself, but Dulse had asked
around a bit. The father, a longshoreman, had died in the big earthquake, when Silence would have been
seven or eight; the mother was a cook at a waterfront inn. At twelve the boy had got into some kind of
trouble, probably messing about with magic, and his mother had managed to prentice him to Elassen, a
respectable sorcerer in Valmouth. There the boy had picked up his true name, and some skill in
carpentry and farmwork, if not much else; and Elassen had had the generosity, after three years, to pay
his passage to Roke. That was all Dulse knew about him.
I dislike goat cheese, Dulse said.
Silence nodded, acceptant as always.
From time to time in the years since then, Dulse remembered how he hadn t lost his temper when
Silence asked about keeping goats; and each time the memory gave him a quiet satisfaction, like that of
finishing the last bite of a perfectly ripe pear.
After spending the next several days trying to recapture the missing word, he had set Silence to studying
the Acastan Spells. Together they had finally worked it out, a long toil. Like ploughing with a blind ox,
Dulse said.
Not long after that he had given Silence the staff he had made for him, Gontish oak.
And the Lord of Gont Port had tried once again to get Dulse to come down to do what needed doing in
Gont Port, and Dulse had sent Silence down instead, and there he had stayed.
And Dulse was standing on his own doorstep, three eggs in his hand and the rain running cold down his
back.
How long had he been standing here? Why was he standing here? He had been thinking about mud,
about the floor, about Silence. Had he been out walking on the path above the Overfell? No, that was
years ago, years ago, in the sunlight. It was raining. He had fed the chickens, and come back to the house
with three eggs, they were still warm in his hand, silky brown lukewarm eggs, and the sound of thunder
was still in his mind, the vibration of thunder was in his bones, in his feet. Thunder?
No. There had been a thunderclap, a while ago. This was not thunder. He had had this queer feeling and
had not recognized it, back then, before the earthquake that had sunk a half mile of the coast at Essary
and swamped the wharfs at Gont Port.
He stepped down from the doorstep onto the dirt so that he could feel the ground with the nerves of his
soles, but the mud slimed and fouled any messages the dirt had for him. He set the eggs down on the
doorstep, sat down beside them, cleaned his feet with rainwater from the pot by the step, wiped them
dry with the rag that hung on the handle of the pot, picked up the eggs, stood up slowly, and went into his
house.
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He gave a sharp look at his staff, which leaned in the corner behind the door. He put the eggs in the
larder, ate an apple quickly because he was hungry, and took his staff. It was yew, bound at the foot with
copper, worn to silk at the grip. Nemmerle had given it to him.
Stand! he said to it in its language, and let go of it. It stood as if he had driven it into a socket.
To the root, he said impatiently, in the language of the Making. To the root!
He watched the staff that stood on the shining floor. In a little while he saw it quiver very slightly, a
shiver, a tremble.
Ah, ah, ah, said the old wizard.
What should I do? he said aloud after a while.
The staff swayed, was still, shivered again.
Enough of that, my dear, Dulse said, laying his hand on it. Come now. No wonder I kept thinking
about Silence. I should send for him ... send to him ... No. What did Ard say? Find the center, find the
center. That s the question to ask. That s what to do... As he muttered on to himself, routing out his
heavy cloak, setting water to boil on the small fire he had lighted earlier, he wondered if he had always
talked to himself, if he had talked all the time when Silence lived with him. No, it had become a habit after
Silence left, he thought, with the bit of his mind that went on thinking the ordinary thoughts of life, while
the rest of it made preparations for terror and destruction.
He hard-boiled the three new eggs and one already in the larder and put them into a pouch along with
four apples and a bladder of resinated wine, in case he had to stay out all night. He shrugged arthritically
into his heavy cloak, took up his staff, told the fire to go out, and left.
He no longer kept a cow. He stood looking into the poultry yard, considering. The fox had been visiting
the orchard lately. But the birds would have to forage if he stayed away. They must take their chances,
like everyone else. He opened their gate a little. Though the rain was no more than a misty drizzle now,
they stayed hunched up under the henhouse eaves, disconsolate. The King had not crowed once this
morning.
Have you anything to tell me? Dulse asked them.
Brown Bucca, his favorite, shook herself and said her name a few times. The others said nothing.
Well, take care. I saw the fox on the full-moon night, Dulse said, and went on his way.
As he walked he thought; he thought hard; he recalled. He recalled all he could of matters his teacher
had spoken of once only and long ago. Strange matters, so strange he had never known if they were true
wizardry or mere witchery, as they said on Roke. Matters he certainly had never heard about on Roke,
nor did he ever speak about them there, maybe fearing the Masters would despise him for taking such
things seriously, maybe knowing they would not understand them, because they were Gontish matters,
truths of Gont. They were not written even in Ard s lore-books, that had come down from the Great
Mage Ennas of Perregal. They were all word of mouth. They were home truths.
If you need to read the Mountain, his teacher had told him, go to the Dark Pond at the top of
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Semere s cow pasture. You can see the ways from there. You need to find the center. See where to go
in.
Go in? the boy Dulse had whispered.
What could you do from outside?
Dulse was silent for a long time, and then said, How?
Thus. And Ard s long arms had stretched out and upward in the invocation of what Dulse would know
later was a great spell of Transforming. Ard spoke the words of the spell awry, as teachers of wizardry [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
long pause.
What for?
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Silence apparently did not notice the pause or the extreme softness of Dulse s voice. Milk, cheese,
roast kid, company, he said.
Have you ever kept goats? Dulse asked, in the same soft, polite voice.
Silence shook his head.
He was in fact a town boy, born in Gont Port. He had said nothing about himself, but Dulse had asked
around a bit. The father, a longshoreman, had died in the big earthquake, when Silence would have been
seven or eight; the mother was a cook at a waterfront inn. At twelve the boy had got into some kind of
trouble, probably messing about with magic, and his mother had managed to prentice him to Elassen, a
respectable sorcerer in Valmouth. There the boy had picked up his true name, and some skill in
carpentry and farmwork, if not much else; and Elassen had had the generosity, after three years, to pay
his passage to Roke. That was all Dulse knew about him.
I dislike goat cheese, Dulse said.
Silence nodded, acceptant as always.
From time to time in the years since then, Dulse remembered how he hadn t lost his temper when
Silence asked about keeping goats; and each time the memory gave him a quiet satisfaction, like that of
finishing the last bite of a perfectly ripe pear.
After spending the next several days trying to recapture the missing word, he had set Silence to studying
the Acastan Spells. Together they had finally worked it out, a long toil. Like ploughing with a blind ox,
Dulse said.
Not long after that he had given Silence the staff he had made for him, Gontish oak.
And the Lord of Gont Port had tried once again to get Dulse to come down to do what needed doing in
Gont Port, and Dulse had sent Silence down instead, and there he had stayed.
And Dulse was standing on his own doorstep, three eggs in his hand and the rain running cold down his
back.
How long had he been standing here? Why was he standing here? He had been thinking about mud,
about the floor, about Silence. Had he been out walking on the path above the Overfell? No, that was
years ago, years ago, in the sunlight. It was raining. He had fed the chickens, and come back to the house
with three eggs, they were still warm in his hand, silky brown lukewarm eggs, and the sound of thunder
was still in his mind, the vibration of thunder was in his bones, in his feet. Thunder?
No. There had been a thunderclap, a while ago. This was not thunder. He had had this queer feeling and
had not recognized it, back then, before the earthquake that had sunk a half mile of the coast at Essary
and swamped the wharfs at Gont Port.
He stepped down from the doorstep onto the dirt so that he could feel the ground with the nerves of his
soles, but the mud slimed and fouled any messages the dirt had for him. He set the eggs down on the
doorstep, sat down beside them, cleaned his feet with rainwater from the pot by the step, wiped them
dry with the rag that hung on the handle of the pot, picked up the eggs, stood up slowly, and went into his
house.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
He gave a sharp look at his staff, which leaned in the corner behind the door. He put the eggs in the
larder, ate an apple quickly because he was hungry, and took his staff. It was yew, bound at the foot with
copper, worn to silk at the grip. Nemmerle had given it to him.
Stand! he said to it in its language, and let go of it. It stood as if he had driven it into a socket.
To the root, he said impatiently, in the language of the Making. To the root!
He watched the staff that stood on the shining floor. In a little while he saw it quiver very slightly, a
shiver, a tremble.
Ah, ah, ah, said the old wizard.
What should I do? he said aloud after a while.
The staff swayed, was still, shivered again.
Enough of that, my dear, Dulse said, laying his hand on it. Come now. No wonder I kept thinking
about Silence. I should send for him ... send to him ... No. What did Ard say? Find the center, find the
center. That s the question to ask. That s what to do... As he muttered on to himself, routing out his
heavy cloak, setting water to boil on the small fire he had lighted earlier, he wondered if he had always
talked to himself, if he had talked all the time when Silence lived with him. No, it had become a habit after
Silence left, he thought, with the bit of his mind that went on thinking the ordinary thoughts of life, while
the rest of it made preparations for terror and destruction.
He hard-boiled the three new eggs and one already in the larder and put them into a pouch along with
four apples and a bladder of resinated wine, in case he had to stay out all night. He shrugged arthritically
into his heavy cloak, took up his staff, told the fire to go out, and left.
He no longer kept a cow. He stood looking into the poultry yard, considering. The fox had been visiting
the orchard lately. But the birds would have to forage if he stayed away. They must take their chances,
like everyone else. He opened their gate a little. Though the rain was no more than a misty drizzle now,
they stayed hunched up under the henhouse eaves, disconsolate. The King had not crowed once this
morning.
Have you anything to tell me? Dulse asked them.
Brown Bucca, his favorite, shook herself and said her name a few times. The others said nothing.
Well, take care. I saw the fox on the full-moon night, Dulse said, and went on his way.
As he walked he thought; he thought hard; he recalled. He recalled all he could of matters his teacher
had spoken of once only and long ago. Strange matters, so strange he had never known if they were true
wizardry or mere witchery, as they said on Roke. Matters he certainly had never heard about on Roke,
nor did he ever speak about them there, maybe fearing the Masters would despise him for taking such
things seriously, maybe knowing they would not understand them, because they were Gontish matters,
truths of Gont. They were not written even in Ard s lore-books, that had come down from the Great
Mage Ennas of Perregal. They were all word of mouth. They were home truths.
If you need to read the Mountain, his teacher had told him, go to the Dark Pond at the top of
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Semere s cow pasture. You can see the ways from there. You need to find the center. See where to go
in.
Go in? the boy Dulse had whispered.
What could you do from outside?
Dulse was silent for a long time, and then said, How?
Thus. And Ard s long arms had stretched out and upward in the invocation of what Dulse would know
later was a great spell of Transforming. Ard spoke the words of the spell awry, as teachers of wizardry [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]