"Andre Norton - Witch World - The Turning 03 - On Wings of Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

After the Turning of the southern mountains brought down two towers
and some walls, opening thereby numerous secret rooms and crypts which
held even more records, we were like to be swallowed by a sea of lore
which we could not even list nor find places to store. What surprises might
hide therein we could not even guess.

There were those who had their special subjects for which to search,
but many among the oldest of the scholars simply became bewildered by
this new wealth and could be found at times picking up a roll, a few
minutes later abandoning it for a book or a scroll, and then sinking into a
kind of daze as might a child who was faced by too great a supply of
sweets on a feasting table.

However, there was danger and some of us knew that well. Nolar, who
was witch talented but not trained, had testified to that when she had
written her own account of the Stone of Konnard. That there were, in
addition, other unchancy discoveries to be made was brought home to us
in later times.

Yet the start of it all began with no stench of evil but rather a thing
which had long provided a thorn to prick Nolar.

Spring came later for several years after the Turning, and our winters
were longer. Lormt had changed in more than the sudden loss of towers
and walls. The Witches had never had any interest in what was stored
there, and, while they ruled Estcarp, few found their way down the single
road which linked our storehouse with the outer world.

We had a spread of small farmsteads without the walls but within a
ring of forest which held us as a center. There were a few traders who
sought us out to bring what we could not raise or make by our own hands.
Otherwise what lay beyond our narrow boundaries took on shapes of
legend and to most did not matter.

However, when the forest was storm-flattened at the Turning, the river
Es thrown from its bed, our world whirled about us and changed. First
came refugees—though none of those lingered. Then followed seekers of
special knowledge. The long rule of the Witches broken, other changes
arose. Escore had been opened—that age-old land from which we of the
Old Race had come very long ago. There war raged between
newly-awakened evil and those who stood for the Light. We heard reports
no one would have given credence to in other years.

Yes, evil came, and twice near to Lormt. There was fighting of another
sort and in that I had a part.

Kemoc Tregarth, who had proven the worth of what Lormt held, made
calls upon our records. So did others who faced clearly the fact that the old
way of life had vanished and new must be hammered out with all the skill