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

"It shall be the cause of much contention and great suffering and vast
destruction. Its power reaches from where it now lies to blow out the
lives of men yet unborn as easily as thou wouldst snuff out a
candle."

"It's an evil thing then, Master," I said, and Belsambar and Belmakor
agreed.

"Destroy it, Master," Belsambar pleaded, "before it can bring its evil
into the world."

"That may not be," our Master replied.

"Blessed be the wisdom of Aldur," Belzedar said, his eyes glittering
strangely.

"With us to aid him, our Master may wield this wondrous jewel for good
instead of ill. It would be monstrous to destroy so precious a thing."
Now that I look back at everything that's happened, I suppose I
shouldn't really blame Belzedar for his unholy interest in the Orb. It
was a part of something that absolutely had to happen. I shouldn't
blame him for it--but I do.

"I tell ye, my sons," our Master continued,

"I would not destroy the Orb even were it possible. Ye have all just
returned from looking at the world in its childhood and at man in his
infancy. All living things must grow or they will die. Through this
jewel shall the world be changed and man shall achieve that state for
which he was made. The Orb is not of itself evil. Evil is a thing
that lies only in the hearts and minds of men-and of Gods, also." And
then our Master fell silent, and he sighed, and we went away and left
him in his sad communion with the Orb.

We saw little of our Master in the centuries that followed. Alone in
his tower he continued his study of the Orb, and he learned much from
it, I think. We were all saddened by his absence, and our work had
little joy in it.

I think it was about twenty centuries after I came to serve my Master
when a stranger came into the Vale. He was beautiful as no being I
have ever seen, and he walked as if his foot spurned the earth.

As was customary, we went out to greet him.

"I would speak with my brother, thy Master, Aldur," he told us, and we
knew that we were in the presence of a God.

As the eldest, I stepped forward.