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

"I have oft times wondered whatever happened to those who stayed
behind," he said sadly.

"I can clear that up for you, my friend," I advised him.

"I happened across them some twenty-five or so years ago. They had a
large camp quite a ways north of my Master's Vale. I spent a winter
with them and then moved on. I doubt that you'd find any of them still
alive, though.

They were all very old when I saw them."

He gave me a stricken look, and then he bowed his head and wept.

"What's wrong, Gorim?" I exclaimed, somewhat alarmed.

"I had hoped that UL might relent and set aside my curse on them,"

he replied brokenly.

"Curse?"

"That they would wither and perish and be no more. Their women were
made barren by my curse."

"It was still working when I was there," I told him.

"There wasn't a single child in the entire camp. I wondered why they
made such a fuss over me. I guess they hadn't seen a child in a long,
long time. I couldn't get any details from them, because I couldn't
understand their language."

"They spoke the old tongue," he told me sadly, "even as do my people
here in Prolgu."

"How is it that you speak my language then?" I asked him.

"It is my place as leader to speak for my people when we encounter
other races," he explained.

"Ah," I said.

"That stands to reason, I guess."

My Master and I returned to the Vale not long after that, and I took up
other studies. Time seemed meaningless in the Vale, and I devoted
years of study to the most commonplace of things. I examined trees and
birds, fish and beasts, insects and vermin. I spent forty-five years
on the study of grass alone. In time it occurred to me that I wasn't
aging as other men did. I'd seen enough old people to know that aging