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

but it felt important. Once again, Vetch considered the words. Carefully. What was the Mouth trying to
say to him? "And?" he ventured.

"And, perhaps, they will try to take the dragon from you."

"She won't go," Vetch replied, with some heat, and yet sure of himself. She wouldn't, of course, and this
was absolutely the one thing he had no fear of. Unlike the dragons that were captured as fledglings and
tamed, he had raised Avatre from the egg. She was as bonded to him as any creature could beтАФas no
other dragon, save one, had ever been bonded to another human.

That one, and that other human, were perhaps the most important part of his past that there was. Kashet,
and his former Master, the Jouster Ari. They flew in the service of the Great King of Tia. Both of them
were his enemies in name, now, and yet were his friends in fact. It was Ari who had engineered his
escape when Avatre had made her First Flight with him clinging to her back, all hope of concealing her
existence anymore gone off on the kamiseen winds.

Ari and Kashet lay behind him somewhere, in the lands claimed by the High King of Tia. He could not
think of them without gratitude, and yet it was a gratitude tinged with pain. If he could have, he would

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have never left them. And yetтАФ

And yet they were Tians, and he was Altan, and if they ever met again, they would probably have to
fight each other, and possibly to the death.

Still, Kashet would permit no other to ride him but AriтАФand Avatre would be the same with Vetch. He
had absolutely no doubt of that, for Avatre had actually tried to face down KashetтАФwho was many
times her sizeтАФwhen she thought the great blue was threatening Vetch.

"Nevertheless," persisted the Mouth, "they will try. They may starve her until she eats tala-treated meat,
and is drugged into submission. Unless you make yourself into Kiron, son of Kiron, Altan Jouster.
Unless you come to believe that you are that person. Then, no one will presume to doubt that you are
entitled to ride her."

Vetch closed his eyes for a moment. A Mouth never, ever said something as an idle observation. And
along with all of the passage-rights that Ari had purchased for him with his Gold of Honor, had come
anotherтАФthe right to be instructed in whatever any Mouth thought might be useful. Some of the Mouths
had honored this more in the breach than the observance, but this one seemed to be offering sound
advice. "Can you teach me to believe?" he asked finally, opening his eyes.

The Mouth regarded him with solemn dark eyes above the veil. "Perhaps. I can, at least, give you a
guide to teach yourself. FirstтАФamong our people we have a saying. 'Assume the attitude of prayer, and
in time, the attitude will become the prayer.' I put this to you. Already you are aware of how you hold
yourself, for this tells your dragon much, and instructs her on what she should be thinking about what is
around her."

Vetch nodded; that was plain enough. Dragons were supremely sensitive to the language of body and
posture.