"Katherine Kerr - Deverry 05 - A Time Of Exile" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kerr Katherine)

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Prologue

The Eldidd Border
1096

тАЬAS THRIFTY AS a dwarfтАЭ is a common catchphrase, and one that the Mountain People take for a
compliment. Although they see no reason to waste anything, whether itтАЩs a scrap of cloth or the heel of a
loaf, they keep a particularly good watch over their gemstones and metals, though they never tell anyone
outside their kin and clan just how they do it. Otho, the silver daggersтАЩ smith down in Dun Mannannan,
was no different than any other dwarven craftsman, unless he was perhaps more cautious than most. His
usual customer was some hotheaded young lad whoтАЩd dishonored himself badly enough to be forced to
join the silver daggers, and you have to admit that a wandering swordsman who fights only for coin, not
honor, isnтАЩt the sort you can truly trust with either dwarven silver or magical secrets.

During his long years among humans in the kingdom of Deverry, Otho taught a few other smiths how to
smelt the rare alloy for the daggers, an extremely complicated process with a number of peculiar steps,
such as words to be chanted and hand gestures to be made just so. Otho would always refuse to answer
questions, saying only that if his students wanted the formula to come out right, they could follow his
orders, and if they didnтАЩt, they could get out of his forge right then and spare everyone trouble. All the
apprentices shut their mouths and stayed; they were bright enough to realize that they were being taught
magic of some sort, even if they werenтАЩt being told what the spells accomplished. Once they opened
shops of their own, they went on repeating OthoтАЩs procedures in the exact way theyтАЩd been taught, so
that every dagger made of dwarven silver in Deverry carried two kinds of dweomer.

One spell Otho would acknowledge, especially to someone that he liked and trusted; the other he would
have hidden from his own brother. The first produced in the metal itself an antipathy to the auric
vibrations of the elven race, so that the dagger glowed brightly the moment an elf came within a few feet
of it. The other, the secret spell, was its necessary opposite, producing an affinity, in this case to the
daggerтАЩs true owner, so that if lost or stolen, sooner or later the magical currents of the universe would
float that dagger home. The thing was, by тАЬtrue ownerтАЭ Otho meant himself, which meant that any lost
dagger would eventually come home to him, no matter who had actually made it or how much its interim
owner had paid for it. Otho justified all of this by thinking of the purchase price as mere rent, a trifling
detail that he never mentioned to his customers.

Once and only once had Otho produced an exception, and that was by accident. Round about 1044, he
made a dagger for Cullyn of Cerrmor, one of the few human beings he truly admired. In the course of
things, that blade passed to Rhodry Maelwaedd, a young lord who was forced by political exile to join
the silver daggers. As soon as Rhodry laid his hand on the dagger, it was obvious that his blood was a
little rarer than merely nobleтАФthe blade blazed up and accused him of being half an elf at least.
Grudgingly, and only as a favor for Cullyn of CerrmorтАЩs daughter, Otho took off the denouncing spell.
What Otho didnтАЩt realize, since his dweomer was a thing of rote memory rather than real understanding,
was that heтАЩd weakened the complementary magic as well. The dagger now saw Rhodry, not the dwarf,
as its one true owner.

A silver daggerтАЩs life is never easy, and RhodryтАЩs time on the long road was worse than most, and by