"David Eddings - The Dreamers 01 - The Elder gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eddings David)

тАШI didnтАЩt think so,тАЩ Zelana said smugly. тАШNow go.тАЩ
He looked longingly toward the back of the cave.
тАШQuickly, quickly, Sorgan,тАЩ she said, snapping her fingers at him. тАШThe
day runs on, and we want to be well on our way before the sun goes to
bed.тАЩ
 THE LAND OF MAAG




1



Now Old-Bear was the chief of the tribe, and though he seldom spoke,
LongbowтАЩs parents had told their son when he had been but a child that
Old-Bear was very wise. Longbow had been busy being a child at that
time, so he had accepted what his parents had told him without question
and had continued his childhood with great enthusiasm.
The village of Old-BearтАЩs tribe at that time had been located atop a
high bluff where the deep forest lay at its back and the shining face of
Mother Sea stretched from the foot of the bluff to the far western horizon.
Longbow had been certain that there could be no better place in the entire
world to be a child.
It had been in the late summer of LongbowтАЩs fifth year when many
members of Old-BearтАЩs tribe had been overcome by a strange illness that
had first burned them with fever and then had wracked them with chill.
Their skin had been marked with purple splotches, and they had seen
things which had not really been there - things so horrible that they had
screamed for many days, and then they had died.
Now One-Who-Heals was the shaman of Old-BearтАЩs tribe, and he was
very skilled in the healing arts, but the pestilence which had crept out of
the night resisted his every attempt to conquer it, and fully half of the
tribe of Old-Bear had been carried off. And among those who had been
lost had been the parents of Longbow and the mate of Chief Old-Bear.
And One-Who-Heals, realizing that the pestilence had defeated him, had
gone to the lodge of Old-Bear and had urged his chief to gather up those
members of the tribe who still lived and to flee.
In sorrow, Old-Bear had agreed and had commanded the survivors to
burn their lodges, and then he had led them to a new location near the
shore of Mother Sea where they could build lodges on uncontaminated
ground, and he had taken the orphaned Longbow into his new lodge and
had reared him as if he were his own son.
Now Old-Bear had a daughter named Misty-Water, but the children
had not, as children often do, contended with each other for Old-BearтАЩs
attention, but rather had joined together in their grief. Though they had
grown up together in the same lodge, Misty-Water and Longbow had
never thought of each other as brother and sister - perhaps because Old-
Bear had always referred to Longbow as their тАШguestтАЩ.
Even as a child, Longbow had been very perceptive, and it had seemed