"Roger Taylor - Hawklan 1 - Call of the sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Taylor Roger)

again humility in the face of this wonder; sometimes with their apprentices, to sharpen the edge of their
young aspirations. Fathers too would bring their children and read to them the stories enshrined in the
seemingly endless patterning of the Gate, for Hawklan was no severe overlord: he was a healer. And
though his castle overlooked the village, it blended so harmoniously with the mountains that, like them, it
offered not menace, but stability and calm.

Although the Orthlundyn took little interest in myths and legends, on special days the villagers would
picnic and dance on the grass mounds that fringed the foot of the Castle wall and, in token of the long
ages when Anderras Darion was sealed and unassailable, someone would bring a ladder and climb high
up the Gate and, painstakingly running his finger along the carvings for fear of losing his place in such fine
workmanship, would tell the stories that could not normally be told. For even within the height of an
ordinary man, there were stories enough for a lifetime.

Sometimes a blind man would come to the Gate and run his hands over its finely etched and scored
surface, and the villagers would sit spellbound. For always he would tell a story different to the one that
they could see, and always they went away laughing and excited.

Of the many strangers who visited the Gate, one alone lingered in the memories of the villagers. He was a
tiny man and he came out of the mountains on a sharp and frosty day, trailing his tiny shadow in the
wintry sun. He stared at the Gate for many an hour, and ran his hands across it with his eyes first open,
then closed. Then he brought his face close to the surface, gently blew a long humming stream of misty air
at the ornate patterning, and turned his ear to it in rapt concentration. Those standing near say they heard
a faint singing as from a great distance. The little man nodded and sighed, though not sadly.

‘This is a miraculous gate,’ he said to the group of curious children that had followed him. ‘You must
listen to it when the wind blows. And even when it doesn’t. It holds more stories than you can see or feel,
and they are all true.’

Then he went on his way and was never seen in the village again. The children puffed and blew at the
Gate, but heard nothing, and soon forgot the little man, although occasionally, one of them, quieter than
the others, would raise his hand suddenly for silence when a soft wind drifted up from the fields below.

‘Listen,’ he would say. ‘The Castle’s singing.’ But the others would laugh.

To the left of the Great Gate was a bubbling pool, the water from which spilled over the rocks and
tumbled and cascaded its way down to join the river that ran through the outskirts of the village. This
stream was from the valleys beyond the Castle, and its water was cold and clear and sharp. No one
knew how deep the pool was, as nothing would sink in it, such was the uprush of water from it, even in
the driest summer.

Atop the eyeless wall, towers and solid rectangular blocks of buildings grew in a random but not
disordered manner, soaring up and raking back in tiers beyond the sight of anyone standing at its foot.
Only the birds could see all the splendour of the Castle, but such as could be seen by earthbound
creatures filled them with wonder and awe, and sober contemplation of the people who had made it.
There were many skills in the land, but none could pretend to such as had made this edifice.

Anderras Darion gave a benign security to the village of Pedhavin. Its occupant was known and loved;
the wicket in the Great Gate was always open, and the Gate alone was a joy and a wonder and a point
of proud gossip in villages all around. And yet the Castle stood immovable and solid, its walls seeming to
hold the mountains apart: unassailable by stone and ladder, fire and iron. Not even treachery would open