"Ursula K. LeGuin - Earthsea 5 - The Other Wind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

Then there was some movement, something lighter, coming up the hill, coming slowly
nearer. Alder shook with fear and yearning, and whispered, "Oh my dear love."
But the figure as it came closer was too small to be Lily. He saw it was a child of
twelve or so, girl or boy he could not tell. It paid no heed to him or the Summoner and
never looked across the wall, but settled down just under it. When Alder came closer
and looked down he saw the child was prying and pulling at the stones, trying to
loosen one, then another.
The Summoner was whispering in the Old Speech. The child glanced up once
indifferently and went on tugging at the stones with its thin fingers that seemed to have
no strength in them.
This was so horrible to Alder that his head spun; he tried to turn away, and beyond that
he could remember nothing till he woke in the sunny room, lying in bed, weak and sick
and cold.
People looked after him: the aloof, smiling woman who kept the lodging house, and a
brown-skinned, stocky old man who came with the Doorkeeper. Alder took him for a
physician-sorcerer. Only after he had seen him with his staff of olive wood did he
understand that he was the Herbal, the master of healing of the School on Roke.
His presence brought solace, and he was able to give Alder sleep. He brewed up a tea
and had Alder drink it, and lighted some herb that burned slowly with a smell like the
dark earth under pine woods, and sitting nearby began a long, soft chant. "But I must
not sleep," Alder protested, feeling sleep coming into him like a great dark tide. The
healer laid his warm hand on Alder's hand. Then peace came into Alder, and he slipped
into sleep without fear. So long as the healer's hand was on his, or on his shoulder, it
kept him from the dark hillside and the wall of stones.
He woke to eat a little, and soon the Master Herbal was there again with the tepid,
insipid tea and the earth-smelling smoke and the dull untuneful chant and the touch of
his hand; and Alder could have rest.
The healer had all his duties at the School, so could be there only some hours of the
night. Alder got enough rest in three nights that he could eat and walk about the town a
little in the day and think and talk coherently. On the fourth morning the three masters,
the Herbal, the Doorkeeper, and the Summoner, came to his room.
Alder bowed to the Summoner with dread, almost distrust, in his heart. The Herbal was
also a great mage, but his art was not altogether different from Alder's own craft, so
they had a kind of understanding; and there was the great kindness of his hand. The
Summoner, though, dealt not with bodily things but with the spirit, with the minds and
wills of men, with ghosts, with meanings. His art was arcane, dangerous, full of risk
and threat. And he had stood beside Alder there, not in the body, on the boundary, at
the wall. With him the darkness and the fear returned.
None of the three mages said anything at first. If they had one thing in common, it was
a great capacity for silence.


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Le Guin, Ursula - [Earthsea 05] The Other Wind

So Alder spoke, trying to say what was in his heart, for nothing less would do.
"If I did some wrong that brought me to that place, or brought my wife to me there, or
the other souls, if I can mend or undo what I did, I will. But I don't know what it is I
did."
"Or what you are," the Summoner said.