"Robin Hobb - Assassin 1 - Assassin' s Apprentice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hobb Robin)

of the old line. And this thing you're doing, it's wrong. It's not worthy of
you. Do you understand?"
I shook my head mutely.
"There, you see. You're not talking anymore. Now talk to me. Who taught you
to do this?"
I tried. "Do what?" My voice felt creaky and rough.
Burrich's eyes grew rounder. I sensed his effort at control. "You know what I
mean. Who taught you to be with the dog, in his mind, seeing things with him,
letting him see with you, telling each other things?"
I mulled this over for a moment. Yes, that was what had been happening. "No
one," I answered at last. "It just happened. We were together a lot," I added,
thinking that might explain it.
Burrich regarded me gravely. "You don't speak like a child," he observed
suddenly. "But I've heard that was the way of it, with those who had the old
Wit. That from the beginning, they were never truly children. They always knew
too much, and as they got older they knew even more. That was why it was never
accounted a crime, in the old days, to hunt them down and burn them. Do you
understand what I'm telling you, Fitz?"
I shook my head, and when he frowned at my silence, I forced myself to add,
"But I'm trying. What is the old Wit?"
Burrich looked incredulous, then suspicious. "Boy!" he threatened me, but I
only looked at him. After a moment he conceded my ignorance.
"The old Wit," he began slowly. His face darkened, and he looked down at his
hands as if remembering an old sin. "It's the power of the beast blood, just as
the Skill comes from the line of kings. It starts out like a blessing, giving
you the tongues of the animals. But then it seizes you and draws you down, makes
you a beast like the rest of them. Until finally there's not a shred of humanity
in you, and you run and give tongue and taste blood, as if the pack were all you
had ever known. Until no man could look on you and think you had ever been a
man." His voice had gotten lower and lower as he spoke, and he had not looked at
me, but had turned to the fire and stared into the failing flames there.
"There's some as say a man takes on the shape of a beast then, but he kills with
a man's passion rather than a beast's simple hunger. Kills for the killing ...
"Is that what you want, Fitz? To take the blood of kings that's in you, and
drown it in the blood of the wild hunt?
To be as a beast among beasts, simply for the sake of the knowledge it brings
you? Worse yet, think on what comes before. Will the scent of fresh blood touch
off your temper, will the sight of prey shut down your thoughts?" His voice grew
softer still, and I heard the sickness he felt as he asked me, "Will you wake
fevered and asweat because somewhere a bitch is in season and your companion
scents it? Will that be the knowledge you take to your lady's bed?"
I sat small beside him. "I do not know," I said in a little voice.



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He turned to face me, outraged. "You don't know?" he growled. "I tell you
where it will lead, and you say you don't know?"