"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 1 - The Misenchanted Sword" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

the sheath together. They behaved ordinarily, like any inanimate objects,
until the tip of the blade reached the mouth of the scabbard, and then
something stopped any further motion. It did not matter whether the point was
in the center of the opening, at either end, or to one side or the other; it
would not enter the scabbard.
Fascinated, Valder put the sword down and then discovered that he could
not remove his hand from its hilt. He picked it up again and stared at it.
No difference was visible. It was the same standard military-issue sword
he had had since becoming a scout. He could open his hand and wiggle his
fingers, but could not, he found, pull his hand away from the grip entirely.
Something held it, magically. He lifted his hand, fingers outstretched and
palm down, and the sword clung to the middle of his palm as if glued there.
It was not glued there, however; he wrapped his hand around it again,
then unwrapped, and this time had it hanging from his fingertips.
There was no discomfort involved; the sword simply refused to leave his
hand. Experimentally, as it hung from two fingers, he reached up with his left
hand and pulled at it.
It came away readily in his grip -- but now adhered to his left hand just
as it had to his right.
He passed it back and forth a few times, then decided to try something
else. With the sword clinging to the tips of his fingers, he braced both feet
against it, leaning back against a tree, and pushed.
His hand came free; both hands were now unencumbered. The sword was now
attached to the bottom of his right foot.
He stared at it, unsure whether to laugh or scream. Laughter won; he
smiled broadly and chuckled. The sword looked incredibly foolish stuck to the
sole of his foot.
He played with it and found that, although the sword insisted on always
being in contact with some part of his body, it did not seem to care very much
which part. He could hang it from his nose, if he so desired -- although it
would swing toward his right hand, as if preferring that and trying to get
back to it. Nor did it matter visibly which part of the sword touched him,
hilt, blade, or guard.
Tiring of the game at last, he stuck the sword to the bottom of his foot
again while he studied the scabbard. A quick experiment showed that his dagger
would slip into it with no trouble; pine needles could be stuffed into it and
then scraped out again. Obviously, the sword was the culprit, not the sheath.
He satisfied himself that this was indeed the case by trying to force the
dagger's sheath onto the tip of the sword's blade; it would not go, any more
than the sword's own scabbard would.
An attempt to wrap the sword in his kilt showed him that the weapon
refused to be covered; the cloth slid away from making contact with the metal
of the blade; although Valder could force a few square inches into contact
with the steel for a couple of seconds, something would not let them stay. The
sword refused to be put away, and that was all there was to it.
This peculiar behavior was so intriguing that Valder spent well over an
hour playing with the sword, experimenting in various ways and ignoring the
growling of his stomach. Valder could no longer doubt that the old hermit had
put an enchantment on the sword, but he was still puzzled regarding the exact
nature of the magic. He tried everything he could think of short of risking