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

"I think I will run with you for a while, since you must attend to this
errand of yours. Perhaps we can discuss it as we go along, and you can
explain this complicated thing to me."

"If you wish." I rather liked her and was glad by then for any
company.

It's lonely being a wolf sometimes.

"I must warn you though, that I run very fast," I cautioned her.

She sniffed.

"All wolves run very fast."

And so, side by side, we ran off over the endless grassland in search
of the God Belar.

"Do you intend to run both day and night?" she asked me after we had
gone several miles.

"I will rest when I grow tired."

"I am glad of that." Then she laughed in the way of wolves, nipped at
my shoulder, and scampered off.

I began to consider the morality of my situation. Though my companion
looked quite delightful to me in my present form, I was almost positive
that she would seem less so once I resumed my proper shape. Further,
while it's undoubtedly a fine thing to be a father, I was fairly
certain that a litter of puppies might prove to be an embarrassment
when I returned to my Master. Not only that, the puppies would not be
entirely wolves, and I didn't really want to father a race of monsters.
But finally, since wolves mate for life, when I left my companion--as I
would eventually be compelled to do--she would be abandoned, left alone
with a litter of fatherless puppies, and subject to the scorn and
ridicule of the other members of her pack. Propriety is very important
to wolves. Thus, I resolved to resist her advances on our journey in
search of Belar.

I wouldn't have devoted so much time and space to this incident except
to help explain how insidiously the personalities of the shapes we
assume come to dominate our thinking. Before we had gone very far, I
was as much or more a wolf as my little friend. If you should ever
decide to practice this art, be careful. To remain in a shape too long
is to invite the very real possibility that when the time comes to go
back to your own form, you may not want to. I'll quite candidly admit
that by the time the young she-wolf and I reached the realms of the
Bear God, I'd begun to give long thoughts to the pleasures of the den
and the hunt, the sweet nuzzlings of puppies, and the true and