"Andre Norton - Witch World - The Turning 07 - The Key of the Keplian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

The Key of the Keplian by Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie




1

The he old man was dying. Once, she had thought he would live forever. Now she was older and knew
that all things died in their time. This was his. His eyes met hers calmly and she knew then that he would
tell her what to do.

He studied her as she crouched beside him. She was too thin for beauty but in his eyes she was not only
beautiful, she was beloved: the daughter of his son's daughter and his only living descendant. The coming
of another race had been hard on his people. Too many had died from diseases they had never known as
free-rangers. Others had taken as starving coyotes to the firewater offered all too often.

Disease had slain his son, ill fortune the boy's daughter and her man, leaving this one alone. Other blood
had mingled with that of the Nemunuh over the generations: his own mother had been half Navajo, the
daughter of a white man by his Indian wife. His eyes watched the girl. Eleeri he had named her, from the
ancient tongue used only by those of power. There were few of those nowadays; in too many lines the
gift had faltered and died. But in the child it had come again, flowering into the true horse-gift and into ties
with other life.

The girl watched him, sorrow in the huge gray eyes. Her long black hair hung past her thin shoulder and
she brushed the shining strands back with an impatient hand. As her hand lifted, powerful tendons stood
out in the hollow of a wrist. The slenderness was a disguise; here was one who was all wire and
whipcord. Long, long ago, women had been warriors and accepted so by the Nemunuh. Far Traveler
had trained his great-granddaughter well. In these degenerate days none of the young men couldmatch
her in bow or knife skill. Nor could any, man • or woman, match her with horse or hunt. He smiled up at
her, then spoke, his voice weak but clear.

"I named you Eleeri. Now you must prove my naming."

The child was puzzled. That her name meant "Walkerby Strange Roads" she had always known. But
what road was she to walk? The old man smiled at the wrinkled brow.

"Go into the highhills, find there the beginning of the road of the gone-before ones. That you shall walk,
leaving fear behind you. Walk as a warrior. As the last of my line shall you go forth with all I can giveyou.
" A jerk of his head indicated a small heap in the darkened corner of the room. "At sunhigh let you go
with the light, and Ka-dihbless you." He sighed softly. "Would that you could ride, but I sold the last
horse. Nor can you wait too long. The woman who calls on us will come today. You must be well gone
before she arrives."

Eleeri shivered. She must indeed. It had been only her great-grandfather who had saved her six years
ago. She remembered the brutalities of her aunt and uncle. Her father had not disdained the Indian blood
of the bride he had taken, but his sister and the rancher she had wed had been far otherwise. When Far
Traveler died, by white man's law she would fall back into their hands, being not quite sixteen. If there
was a way to flee, she would take it.

A road of the gone-before ones?Her heart leaped. Many were the stories of those ancient people; even