"Books - David Eddings - Polgara the Sorceress" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

a little more sensitive to these variations.
Beldaran and I had been born in midwinter, and uncle Beldin had
moved us to his own tower not long afterward, and it was in that
tower that we spent our childhood. It was about midsummer of our
first year when father finally returned to the Vale. Beldaran and I
were only about six months old at the time, but we both recognized
him immediately. Mother's thought had placed his image in our
minds before we were ever born. The memory of mother's anger
was still very strong in my mind when Beldin lifted me from my
cradle and handed me to the vagabond who'd sired me. I wasn't
particularly impressed with him, to be honest about it, but that
prejudice may have been the result of mother's bitterness about the
way he'd deserted her. Then he laid his hand on my head in some
ancient ritual of benediction, and the rest of my mind suddenly
came awake as his thought came flooding in on me. I could feel the

power coming from his hand, and I seized it eagerly. This was why
I'd been separated from Beldaran! At last I realized the significance
of that separation. She was to be the vessel of love; I was to be the
vessel of power!


The mind is limitless in certain ways, and so my father was probably
unaware of just how much I took from him in that single instant
when his hand touched my head. I'm fairly sure that he still doesn't
fully understand just exactly what passed from him to me in that
instant. What I took from him in no way diminished him, but it
increased me a hundred-fold.

Then he took up Beldaran, and my fury also increased a
hundredfold. How dared this traitor touch my sister? Father and I were not
getting off to a good start.
And then came the time of his madness. I was still not familiar
enough with human speech to fully understand what uncle Beldin
told him that drove him to that madness, but mother's thought
assured me that he'd survive it - eventually.
Looking back now, I realize that it was absolutely essential for
mother and father to be separated. I didn't understand at the time,
but mother's thought had taught me that acceptance is more
important than understanding.
During the time of my father's insanity, my uncles frequently
took my sister to visit him, and that didn't improve my opinion of
him. He became in my eyes a usurper, a vile man out to steal
Beldaran's affection away from me. Jealousy isn't a particularly
attractive emotion, even though it's very natural in children, so I
won't dwell here on exactly how I felt each time my uncles took
Beldaran away from me to visit that frothing madman chained to
his bed in that tower of his. I remember, though, that I protested
vociferously - at the top of my lungs - whenever they took beldaran
away.