"Andre Norton - WW - 18 Port of Dead Ships" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

In due time I became one of the Borderers, adding to my knowledge of weapons that of the countryside
and survival in the wilderness. Only in one respect did I differ from my fellows--I seemed able to bond
with animals. Once I even faced a snow cat, and we looked eye to eye, before the impressive hunter of
the heights went his way. In my mind it was as if I had dwelt for a short moment within his furred skin, kin
to him as I was to no other.

For a time thereafter I was wary and disturbed, fearing that I might even be were, one of those who
divide spirits--man and animal, able to be each in turn. Yet I showed no tendency to grow fur or feather,
fangs or talons. So at length I accepted this as a minor talent--to be cherished.

In border service I met also the younger Tregarths, and from that grew in me a desire to something more
than a triumph at arms and always more bloodletting. Of those two storied warriors it was Kemoc, the
younger, to whom I was most drawn. His father being Simon Tregarth, the outworlder, his mother the
Witch Jaelithe, who had not lost her power even when she wedded, bedded, and bore. There was also
another unheard-of thing--that their children, all three, were delivered at a single birthing. There was
Kemoc, and Kyllan, and their sister, Kaththea, who was taken for Witch training against her will.

Her brothers rode to prevent that but were too late. Kemoc returned from that aborted mission very
quiet, but henceforth there was a deadliness in his eyes when he spoke of his sister. He asked questions
of those who rode with us, and any we met. However, I think he gained little of what he wanted, for we
who had fled Karsten had retained even less of the old lore than was known in Estcarp.

Then, in one of those swift forays which were our life, Kemoc suffered a wound too serious for our
healer to deal with and was taken from the heights we guarded.

Shortly thereafter there came a period of quiet, almost a truce, during which our captain wished to send
orders for supplies and I volunteered for that. With Kemoc gone I was restless and even more alone.

I carried the captain's orders but it meant a gathering of material which would take some time and I had
nothing to do save find Kemoc. In me there has never been the gift of easy friend making and with him
only I had felt akin. I knew that since his sister's taking he had been searching for something, and in that I
also felt I might have a part. When I asked concerning him I was told that his wound (which had left him
partly maimed) had healed well enough for him to go to Lormt.

Lormt was then to us mainly legend. It was said to be a repository of knowledge--useless knowledge
the Witches avered--but it was older even than Es City, whose history covers such a toll of years that it
would take the larger part of a lifetime to count. The Witches avoided it, in fact seemed to hold it in
aversion. There were scholars said to have taken refuge within its walls, but if they learned aught from
their delving they did not share it abroad.

I followed Kemoc to Lormt. It is true that one may be laid under a geas, set to a task from which there
is no turning back. I had angered no one (that I knew of) with the power to set that upon me. But I was
firmly drawn to Lormt.

Thus I came to a vaster and more unusual group of buildings than I had ever seen. There were four
towers and those were connected by walls. Yet no sentries walked those walls and there was no guard
at the single gate. Rather that was ajar, and must have been so for some time, as there was a ridge of soil
holding it thus. Inside were buildings but not like those of a keep, and around, against the walls, smaller
erections most little more than huts--some of which were a-ruin.