"Eddings, David - Malloreon 05 - The Seeress Of Kell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

EDDINGS, David - Malloreon 5 - The Seeress Of Kell.txt
PROLOGUE
Excerpts from The Book of Ages, Book One of THE MALLO-REAN GOSPELS:
Now These are the Ages of Man:
In the First Age was man created, and he awoke in puzzlement and wonder as he beheid
the world about him. And those that had made him considered him and selected from
his number those that pleased them, and the rest were cast out and driven away. And
some went in search of die Spirit known as UL, and they left us and passed into the
west, and we saw them no more. And some denied the Gods, and they went into the far
north to wrestle with demons. And some turned to worldly matters, and they went away
into the east and built mighty cities there.
But we despaired, and we sat us down upon the earth in the shadow of the mountains
of Korim, and in bitterness we bewailed our fate that we had been made and then cast
out.
2 SEERESS OP KELL
And it came to pass that in the midst of our grief a woman of our people was seized
by a rapture, and it was as if she had been shaken by a mighty hand. And she arose
from the earth upon which she sat, and she bound her eyes with a cloth, signifying
that she had seen that which no mortal had seen before, for lo, she was the first
seeress in all the world. And with the touch of her vision still upon her, she spake
unto us, saying:
"Behold! A feast hath been set before Those who made us, and this feast shall ye
call the Feast of Life. And Those who made us have chosen that which pleased Them,
and that which pleased Them not was not chosen.
"Now we are the Feast of Life, and ye sorrow that no Guest at the feast hath chosen
ye. Despair not, however, for one Guest hath not yet arrived at the feast. The other
Guests have taken their fill, but this great Feast of Life awaiteth still the
Beloved Guest who cometh late, and I say unto all the people that it is He who will
choose us. Abide therefore against His coming, for it is certain. Put aside thy
grief and turn thy face to the sky and to the earth that thou mayest read the signs
written there, for this I say unto all the people. It is upon ye that His coming
rests. For behold, He may not choose ye unless ye choose Him. And this is the Fate
for which we were made. Rise up, therefore, and sit no more upon the earth in vain
and foolish lamentation. Take up the task which lies before ye and prepare the way
for Him who will surely come."
Much we marveled at these words, and we considered them most carefully. We
questioned the seeress, but her answers were dark and obscure. And so it was that we
turned our faces to the sky and bent our ears to the whispers which came from the
earth that we might see and hear and learn. And as we learned to read the book of
the skies and to hear the whispers within the rocks, we found myriad warnings that
two spirits would come to us and that the one was good and the other evil. Long we
labored, but still were sorely troubled, for we could not determine which spirit was
the true one and which the false. For truly, evil is disguised as good in the book
of the heavens and in the speech of the earth, and no man is wise enough to choose
between them.
Pondering this, we went out from beneath the shadow of the mountains of Korim and
into the lands beyond, where we abode. And we put aside the concerns of man and bent
all our efforts to the task that lay before us. Our witches and our seers sought the
aid of the spirit world, our necromancers took counsel with
PROLOGUE 3