"Books - David Eddings - Belgarath the Sorcerer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

The peace that came over me was indescribable. My somewhat prosaic
daughter will probably dismiss my bemusement as natural laziness, but
she'll be wrong about that. I have no idea of how long I sat in rapt
communion with that ancient tree. I know that I must have been somehow
nourished and sustained as hours, days, even months drifted by
unnoticed, but I have no memory of ever eating or sleeping.

And then, overnight, it turned cold and began to snow. Winter, like
death, had been creeping up behind me all the while.

I'd formulated a rather vague intention to return to the camp of the
old people for another winter of pampering if nothing better turned up,
but it was obvious that I'd lingered too long in the mesmerizing shade
of that silly tree.

And the snow piled so deep that I could barely flounder my way through
it. My food was gone, and my shoes worn out, and I lost my knife, and
it suddenly turned very, very cold. I'm not making any accusations
here, but it seemed to me that this was all just a little excessive.

In the end, soaked to the skin and with ice forming in my hair, I
huddled behind a pile of rock that seemed to reach up into the very
heart of the snowstorm that swirled around me, and I tried to prepare
myself for death. I thought of the village of Gara, and of the grassy
fields around it, and of our sparkling river, and of my mother,
and--because I was still really very young--I cried.

"Why wee pest thou, boy?" The voice was very gentle. The snow was so
thick that I couldn't see who spoke, but the tone made me angry for
some reason. Didn't I have reason to cry?

"Because I'm cold and I'm hungry," I replied, "and because I'm dying
and I don't want to."

"Why art thou dying? Art thou injured?"

"I'm lost," I said a bit tartly, "and it's snowing and I have no place
to go." Was he blind!

"Is this reason enough amongst thy kind to die?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"And how long dost thou expect this dying of thine to persist?" The
voice seemed only mildly curious.

"I don't know," I replied through a sudden wave of self-pity.

"I've never done it before."