"Andre Norton - WW - 26 The Mage Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

To the loving memory of my mother, Deane R. Schaub,

who encouraged the writing, listened to each chapter as it emerged, and sometimes said,

"That middle part could be somewhat clearer."

--Mary H. Schaub




CHAPTER 1
Mereth of Ferndale­her private journal during the voyage to Estcarp (Dales calendar: Month of the Fire
Thorn, Year of the Horned Hunter)

M y valiant Doubt--if you could see me writing this journal, you would smile. No, not merely smile; I am
certain that you would laugh to behold this aged Daleswoman wedged below decks at the height of a
winter storm, striving to impose some order upon what the Sulcar fondly term their cargo accounts.

I should have been reduced to fingering my tally sticks in the dark had I not recalled the clever bracket
you crafted to steady a lamp no matter how violent the motion of a ship. Persuaded of its virtue by my
sketches, Captain Halbec ordered his carpenter to construct several brackets for our cabins. Expecting
the winter drafts that surge through every passageway, he had prudently stocked ample numbers of
horn-shielded lamps.

While my lamp light is thus fairly assured, my perch on this writing bench is erratically precarious. I must
wield my quill most deliberately to avoid frantic blots and smears. I vow the effort is more frustrating than
writing on horseback; at least while riding, I was always able to curb my horse. Would that this heaving
ship were governable by bit and bridle! The Dames who taught me in childhood would be sorely
disappointed by the appearance of this page. It is fortunate that the secret trade script you and I devised
so long ago requires no fine sweeps or flourishes. If I am jarred much more often, not even I shall be able
to make sense of these marks.

Oh, Doubt, Imiss you. I cannot number the times I have thought and written those words these twenty
years past. With every new dawning, I long for the sound of your voice, the touch of your sleeve against
mine at the work table, the glint of sunlight on your hair.
 The way of life we once shared together has been ripped away. What now prevails is beyond any of my
earlier imaginings. So much has changed . . . but not the ache of parting from you. That pain gnaws as if it
were only hours ago, not years, that you kissed my hand in farewell. Just as my Clan duty forced me to
preserve what I could of our family trading business, so yours drew you to defend your home Dale
against Alizon's ravening Hounds. Unlike all of our previous partings, from that final one there was to be
no joyful return.

When that unspeakable year broke upon us, we might as well have been stricken by the very scourge of
its Year Name: the Fire Troll. Our Dales were seared in spirit as well as flesh when the invading Hounds
boiled ashore. I heard accounts of the metal-sheathed man-carriers supplied by their Kolder allies,