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

about that strange summons. The bushes didn't talk to me, and
neither did the grass. My as yet unformed mind automatically
suspected anything out of the ordinary.
When at last I entered the shade of those wide-spread branches,
a strange sort of warm glowing peace came over me and erased my
trepidation. Somehow I knew that the Tree meant me no harm. I
walked quite resolutely toward that vast, gnarled trunk.
And then I put forth my hand and touched it.
And that was my second awakening. The first had come when
father had laid his hand upon my head in benediction, but in some
ways this awakening was more profound.
The Tree told me although 'told' is not precisely accurate, since
the Tree does not exactly speak - that it was - is, I suppose
the oldest living thing in the entire world. Ages unnumbered have
nourished it, and it stands in absolute serenity in the center of the
Vale, shedding years like drops of rain from its wide-spread leaves.
Since it pre-dates the rest of us, and it's alive, we're all in some
peculiar way its children. The first lesson it taught me - the first
lesson it teaches everyone who touches it - was about the nature of
time. Time, the slow, measured passage of years, is not exactly what
we think it is. Humans tend to break time up into manageable pieces
- night and day, the turning of the seasons, the passage of years,


centuries, eons - but in actuality time is all one piece, a river flowing
endlessly from the beginning toward some incomprehensible goal.
The Tree gently guided my infant understanding through that
extremely difficult concept.
I think that had I not encountered the Tree exactly when I did, I
should never have grasped the meaning of my unusual life-span.
Slowly, with my hands still on the Tree's rough bark, I came to
understand that I would live for as long as necessary. The Tree was
not very specific about the nature of the tasks which lay before me,
but it did suggest that those tasks would take me a very long time.
And then I did hear a voice - several, actually. The meaning of
what they were saying was totally clear to me, but I somehow knew
that these were not human voices. It took me quite some time to
identify their source, and then a rather cheeky sparrow flittered
down through those huge branches, hooked his tiny claws into the
rough bark of the Tree a few feet from my face, and regarded me
with his glittering little eyes.
'Welcome, Polgara,' he chirped. 'What took you so long to find
us?'
The mind of a child is frequently willing to accept the unusual
or even the bizarre, but this went a little far. I stared at that talkative
little bird in absolute astonishment.
'Why are you looking at me like that?' he demanded.
'You're talking!' I blurted.
'Of course I am. We all talk. You just haven't been listening. You
should really pay closer attention to what's going on around you.