"Lawrence Watt-Evans - Ethshar 5 - Taking Flight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watt-Evans Lawrence)

then continued to the west, until on the morning of the third day he had come
to Elankora Castle. Elankora was beyond the hills, and while it wasnt any
place particularly interesting, it was a strange land in that it wasnt
Shulara, so it was a step in the right direction.
There he had encountered a problem that had never occurred to him. Most of the
people of Elankora spoke no Shularan, and he, for his own part, knew only a
dozen words in Elankoran. Realizing his mistake, and frustrated by the
language barrier, he had turned homeward once more.
That was last year. This time he had prepared for that. He had found
tutorswhich had not been easyand had learned a smattering of several dialects,
judging that he could pick up more with practice when the need arose.
Old Chanden had taught him some Aryomoric and a few words of Uramoric. Tikri
Tikris son, across the valley, had turned out to speak Traders Tongue, and
Kelder had learned as much of that as he couldit was said that throughout the
World, merchants who spoke Traders Tongue could be found in every land.
Several neighbors spoke Elankoran and Ressamoric, but he could not find anyone
willing to waste time teaching him; he had to settle for picking up a few bits
and pieces.
Most amazing of all, though, Luralla the Inquisitive, that bane of his
childhood, spoke Ethsharitic! Her grandmother had taught herthough why her
recently-deceased grandmother had spoken it no one seemed to know.
It had even been worth putting up with Lurallas teasing to learnthat! After
all, it was said that the Hegemony of Ethshar was bigger than all the Small
Kingdoms put togetherso it was said, and he had never heard it contradicted,
so he judged it to be the truth.
And if he was to see great cities and vast plains, that could well mean
Ethshar.
Kelder had discovered, to his pleased surprise, that each language he
attempted was easier than the one before. He had feared that his brain would
fill up with words until he could fit no more, but instead he had found
patterns, similarities between the different tongues, so that learning a third
language was easier than a second, and the fourth was easier still.
Even so, a years spare time, given the distractions caused by all his chores
on the farm, was not enough to really become fluent in any of them. He felt he
could get by well enough in Traders Tongue, and knew enough Ethsharitic to
avoid disaster in the event no other tongue would serve. In Aryomoric he was,
he judged, about on a par with a three-year-old, while in Uramoric and
Ressamoric and Elankoran he knew only scattered phrases.
But then, he didnt intend to need Uramoric or Ressamoric or Elankoran, or even
Aryomoric. He had decided to strike out to the north, all the way to the Great
Highway, where his Traders Tongue and Ethsharitic could be put to useto the
Great Highway that ran between the legendary bazaars of Shan on the Desert to
the east, and the huge, crowded complexity of the Hegemony of Ethshar, with
its ancient capital, Ethshar of the Spices, to the west. The seer had said she
saw a road stretching before her that he would travelwhat other road could it
be, but the Great Highway?
So he had set out, his pack on his shoulder, and for three days he had marched
north, through pastures and meadows, past farms and villages, through most of
Shulara into Sevmor, and then from one end of Sevmor to the other.
At least, he thought he had passed beyond Sevmor, because he had never heard