"Mercedes Lackey - Dragon Jousters 2 - Alta" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

Vetch to tell his tale in full, and now had been simply regarding him quietly for some time now, but
Vetch hadn't made any effort to ask why. The Mouth would tell himтАФor notтАФin good time. Vetch still
wasn't entirely certain what role the Mouths played in the lives of the Veiled Ones; they didn't seem to
be priests, quite. They weren't exactly magicians, either, although they did work magic, the magic that
created the talismans that guided him from clan to clan, for instance. They certainly were the only ones
who spoke to outsiders, but they weren't precisely interpreters, nor were they ambassadors. All
bargaining with outsiders was conducted by them, yet they were not traders. And they weren't leaders of
their people either.

In fact, if he could have guessed anything at this point, it would have been that they were, literally, the
voices of their clans, that somehow they knew what everyone in the clan thought, or wanted, with regard
to an outsider, and they were the tool through which these wants, thoughts, and needs were expressed.

But they certainly had their own personalities, for every single one he had encountered so far was as
different from the last as any two individuals could be. Some had barely spoken at all and held
themselves coldly aloof from him; others had been positively garrulous, interested to hear whatever of
his own story he cared to impart, and forthcoming with news of the world outside the desert, if not of
details of their own lives and customs. Some had been terrified of Avatre, others treated her like a kind
of giant falconтАФwith the respect that talons and teeth deserved, but no fear at all.

This one was somewhere in between, but operating on the "helpful" side of the accounting. The Mouth


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had been wary of Avatre and inclined to keep Vetch and his charge far away from the Bedu camp, but
otherwise friendly enough. The Mouth had asked careful questions about Vetch's life as a serf as well as
his treatment by the Tian JoustersтАФAri in particularтАФand about the journey that had brought them here.
Perhaps Avatre's gift of meat had paved the way for that. And this Mouth sat at Vetch's fire now as if
wishing to be there, and not as if mounting guard over the "outsider."

"You call yourself Kiron, son of Kiron," the Mouth said abruptly, although the voice did not break the
silence so much as insinuate itself into the silence and part it. "So you have asked us to address you. And
yet, you do not think of yourself as that person."

How does the Mouth know that? It was something that Vetch himself had not realized until the moment
it was pointed out.

Vetch considered that statement in silence without retorting immediately, giving himself time to analyze
the thought. He had, over the course of these travels, also learned to keep his mouth shut and think about
what a Mouth said before he responded to it, having shoved his foot rather neatly into his own mouth a
time or two in the early part of his journey. "I have been Vetch, the serf, far longer than I have been
Kiron, the keeper of Avatre and dragon rider," he said at last.

"And yet, if you enter into your native land thinking of yourself as Vetch, your own people will treat you
thuswise," said the Mouth, with a touch of warning in the tone. "Vetch the serf is a person of no worth
and no account, deserving of no consideration or special treatment."

He felt a kind of stillness settle into his gut. This was important. He wasn't certain why it was important,