"Andre Norton - WW - Estcarp Cycle 04 - Warlock of the Witch World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

be deceptive, since the Old Race show no signs of aging
until a few weeks before death—if any of them live to
grow old, which in the past years few have. He was both
comely and courtly of manner.

And I hated him.

Bound together as we three had been, in the past we
had never reached out beyond for companionship. After
Kaththea had been torn from us, still had Kyllan and I
been so allied. Even so, there had been comrades in arms
which had our liking, and some we viewed with distaste.
But never in the past had I known such strong emotion
as speared me through—save when I had cut down some
Karsten raider. Yet then my hatred had been more for what
the foe represented than the man himself. Whereas this
Dinzil out of the Heights I hated bitterly, coldly, and the
reason I did not know. In fact, I was so startled by the
emotion which filled me when Dahaun introduced us that I
hesitated over the greeting words.

And it seemed to me in that moment that he knew what
I felt and was amused—as one would be amused at some
act of a child. Yet I was not a child, as Dinzil would
speedily discover if the need arose.

If the need arose ... I realized it was not hatred alone
which shook me whenever I looked upon that smooth, hand-
some face, but also apprehension ... as if, at any moment,
this lord of the peaks would suddenly change from what
he was to something very dangerous to us all. Still, reason
told me, the Green People had welcomed him in friend-
ship, regarded his arrival as a stroke of good fortune. Since
they knew all the dangers of this land, surely they would

not freely open their gates to one who carried with him
the taint of evil.

Kaththea had insisted when we first crossed the fields and
woods of Escore that she could smell out pockets of old
dark magic as an ill stench. My nose did not so mark Din-
zil. Yet inside of me some guardian stood to arms when-
ever I looked upon him.

He spoke well at our council, with good sense and
showing a knowledge of warfare. Those other lords and
warriors with him would now and then offer some comment
which laid plain to us a past in which Dinzil had been
the backbone of their country.